The Australian Greens today welcomed US President-elect Obama's choice of energy efficiency expert Dr Steven Chu as his energy secretary.

The choice of Nobel Prize winning Dr Chu will help to ensure that the USA moves rapidly into a Green New Deal that build jobs and prosperity through energy efficiency and renewable energy. It will dramatically increase the pressure on Australia to follow suit.

"Dr Chu is an inspired choice who will drive the transformation in the American economy that the Rudd Government completely failed to deliver yesterday," Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Climate Change Spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne, said.

"Dr Chu is a Nobel Prize winning expert in energy efficiency who is opposed to nuclear power and deeply sceptical of coal's ability to clean up its act.

"He will champion Mr Obama's commitment to build millions of new jobs in the clean-tech renewable energy and energy efficiency industries that will not only lift America out of recession but simultaneously create a new, green economy.

"If the Rudd Government yesterday could not see the writing on the wall for its coal obsession, today that writing has become even clearer.

"Australia needs to get with the program, ride the wave of change, or be swamped by it."