PRESIDENT Barack Obama's inauguration in Washington on Tuesday has been met with broad approval by north and east manchester campaigners.

A record two million people packed into Washington and approximately 1.5 billion viewers watched Barack Obama make his inaugural speech as the 44th US President in front of the Capitol building overlooking Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on Tuesday.

And campaigners in north and east Manchester have reacted with relief.

Obama has made his way into the history books by becoming the first ever African-American President.

Following with tradition, Obama walked predecessor George W Bush and wife Laura to the waiting presidential helicopter, to take him to his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Now that Obama has enjoyed the glamour of the inaugural celebrations, he knows that at the top of his list before he can confront other issues, he has to deal with stopping a collapsing economy and rising unemployment figures; work out how to end the Iraq War; create a strategic operation against the Taliban in a difficult war in Afghanistan and handle the Middle East conflict.

Providing healthcare for all Americans, tackling global warming and making US dependent from foreign oil are all major issues too.

Obama has already promised to invest $15bn over ten years to develop clean alternative energy, and has talked about his very ambitious target to slash 80 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

Roy Wilkes of Campaign against Climate Change said: "The election of Barack Obama came as a huge relief to environmentalists.

"Obama has already promised to end Bush’s "twisting of science to suit politics or ideology" and to put climate change and the environment among his most urgent priorities. He has also appointed a number of respected environmentalists to key positions in his administration.

"And as the recession deepens, Obama will come under a lot of pressure to maintain those subsidies as well as subsidising the automobile industry. So although most environmentalists welcomed the election of Obama, we will at the end of the day have to judge him not by what he says but by what he actually does."

Mr Wilkes urged the people of north and east Manchester to help in the fight against climate change.

He said: "People in north and east Manchester cannot leave it to the politicians to deliver on climate change.

"They need to get involved in building a mass movement to push for real and lasting change.

"In particular, we need to build and install tens of thousands of wind turbines, and north east Manchester used to have a flourishing engineering industry, just the sort of skills that could be utilised in building new generations of wind turbines.

"These are measures that are well worth fighting for, and the people of north east Manchester, and especially the youth, who have the most to gain from these measures, should join with others who are campaigning for them."

Mark Krantz, of Greater Manchester Stop The War Coalition, says that an Obama presidency will significantly influence British foreign policy decisions.

"It was only after Barack Obama announced a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq that Gordon Brown followed suit and said UK troops were returning too.

"On Iraq, Brown and Tony Blair together followed George Bush into Iraq. It is inevitable that Brown will follow the same path as Obama in putting more troops into Afghanistan."

Mark Burton, secretary for the Manchester Cuban Solidarity Campaign group said: "President Obama could improve relations with Cuba - all he has to do is lift the blockade - many in the US call for it to be lifted, including many hostile to the Cuban revolution who see the blockade as counter-productive.

"He might also lift the travel ban and free the five anti-terrorists serving long sentences in the US following trumped up charges of spying. They had provided their information on terrorist groups to the FBI and this led to their arrest, and an unfair trial."