Symptoms of the Bush-Obama presidency - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Carol Browner
A leading environmentalist in the Clinton administration, Browner was given a second shot by Obama as director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy. She found her efforts thwarted within the administration as well as in Congress: in mid-2010 Obama decided that - as a way to deal with global warming - cap-and-trade legislation was a loser for the midterm elections.

Pressure on Obama from the US Chamber of Commerce to heed business interests served as a strong incitement in forcing Browner's resignation after the Democratic "shellacking" in midterm elections, a result that his quiet abandonment of cap-and-trade had failed to prevent. The White House had no backup plan for addressing the disaster of global warming. After Browner's resignation in March 2011, her position was abolished. Since then, Obama has seldom spoken of global warming or climate change.