Washington  - President-elect Barack Obama's choices to lead his climate and energy team were met with outright glee by an environmental community that has long lamented United States footdragging on climate change.

Though lacking the high profile of some of his other cabinet picks, the announcement Monday was viewed as a signal that Obama is serious about revamping the US response to global warming.

Obama named Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and leading voice on alternative energy, to head the Department of Energy.

Lisa Jackson, the New Jersey governor's chief of staff and once the state's top environmental regulator, was tapped to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), whose tasks include regulating the nation's air and water quality.

Obama created a new White House position to coordinate climate and energy policy. Carol Browner, who headed the EPA under former president Bill Clinton, was tapped to lead the new office.

The new White House "energy czar" was itself viewed as a sign that Obama would follow through on his campaign pledge to make climate and energy pillars of his incoming administration.

"The president-elect's decision to establish a new White House council to integrate policy on the intersection of energy, environment and climate change is both visionary and overdue," said Reid Detchon, executive director of the Energy Future Coalition.

In contrast to some of his earlier nominations, such as Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, Obama this time eschewed some of the more high-profile names that had been suggested for his environmental and energy team.

Other figures who had been mentioned for the role included former secretary of state Colin Powell and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has become a leading voice on climate change in US politics.

Former vice president Al Gore, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for calling attention to climate change, preferred to remain outside of public office. Gore, who met last week with Obama, will likely have an informal advisory role.

Obama's group was nevertheless described by Gene Karpinski of the League of Conservation Voters as "a green dream team" - comments that were echoed by a number of climate activists.

Chu has been a passionate advocate for climate-change research as head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 2004. He led a team that includes 11 Nobel laureates and focussed on renewable energy alternatives such as solar power and bio-fuels.

The Berkeley lab is one of 24 regional labs around the country supervised by the Energy Department that Chu will now control.

Browner has been involved in government climate policy for decades. Before joining the EPA, she worked in Florida's environment department and also served as Gore's legislative director during his time in Congress.

Obama faces huge expectations as he prepares to take office on January 20.

Well before the most recent announcement, the tone of the environmental community had changed dramatically compared to the last eight years under President George W Bush.

Obama has pledged to force the biggest greenhouse-gas emitters in US industry to pay for the climate damage they produce, a policy that Bush has long opposed. The incoming president has vowed to cut US emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and to set a course for a further 80-per-cent cut by 2050.

Obama has made energy a cornerstone of his policies to revive the US economy - pledging to create millions of jobs in the process - but his plans might still be a tough sell in Congress amid a deep recession.

World governments are looking to the incoming US administration to give fresh momentum to international negotiations on a new global climate treaty, though Obama sounded a warning that he expected other countries to contribute.

"Just as we work to reduce our own emissions, we must forge international solutions to ensure that every nation is doing its part," he said at a Chicago press conference announcing the new team.

Obama still has an uphill task. Even climate groups admit that the world is unlikely to agree on a new climate treaty by the self- imposed deadline of December 2009. (dpa)