President-elect Barak Obama formally announced his energy and environment dream team Monday, including Nobel laureate Steven Chu as the next possible Energy Secretary. Others named to tackle environmental issues include former New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson, who will head up the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Clinton-era EPA administrator Carol Browner in the newly created position of White House Coordinator of Energy and Climate Policy; and Colorado Senator Ken Salazar, tapped as Secretary of the Interior.

Nominating Chu, a prize-winning physicist and director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, would indicate Obama’s plans to make good on campaign promises to allow science to guide climate policy. Chu’s views, which include support for a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gases and other policies to reduce energy consumption reduction, would be “among the most forceful ever held by a cabinet member,” according to an article in the Washington Post.

That’s bound to be greeted as good news internationally, where the Copenhagen Climate Council will be relieved to have one of their own as a U.S. ally in discussions to create a global treaty by 2012, according to an article in the Think Progress Progress Report. But Chu’s fervor and that of others on the Obama team could also hinder the next president’s plans to address climate change by spooking a Congress fearful of high-cost energy plans in a declining economy, according to a New York Times report. Still, Obama indicated the appointments were a necessary risk in the face of looming climate issues.

“This time must be different,” The Times quoted Obama as saying at a news conference in Chicago. “This will be a leading priority of my presidency and a defining test of our time. We cannot accept complacency, nor accept any more broken promises.”

To see what other climate pundits have to say on the subject, visit Andrew Revkin’s Dot Earth blog.