The inauguration of the 44th president of the United States is starting to look like the most spectacularly dramatic debut since the Beatles arrived in New York. Before too long, though, the buildup and the hype will be over, and it will be time for Team Obama to produce. Particularly when it comes to three of the president-elect's top priorities - energy and climate change, health care and jump-starting the economy - President Obama would do well to look toward Europe for guidance.

    Europe recently displayed its global leadership by enacting its 20-20-20 Plan: agreeing to cut human-produced carbon emissions that contribute to global warming by at least 20 percent by 2020. They will do this by ramping up renewable energy technologies to 20 percent of its energy usage, and by enacting the world's most ambitious carbon trading program.

    Displaying an important principle that will be crucial to any global climate agreement, the richest European nations agreed to contribute a greater share toward combating climate change than the poorer European nations.

    Importantly, Europe has not allowed the current economic crisis to thwart its drive. European Union Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told the BBC, "The financial crisis is not an excuse, on the contrary; we can make it a win-win situation; we can create more green jobs; we can promote more investment in the low-carbon economy of the future." In a friendly challenge to the president-elect, Barroso said "Our message to our global partners is: 'Yes, you can' ... especially to our American partners."

    Similarly on health care, the Obama administration should learn from what has worked in Europe. European nations are rated by the World Health Organization as having the best health care systems in the world, spending on average far less than the United States for universal coverage and quality results. France has the top rated health care system, while the US is ranked 37th - just ahead of Cuba and Slovenia.

    Yet, contrary to stereotype, France, Germany, and other countries do not use government-run "socialized medicine." Unlike single-payer Britain or Sweden, they have figured out a third way, a hybrid with private insurance companies, short waiting lists for treatment and individual choice of doctors (most of whom are in private practice). And, it turns out, this third way is good for businesses because it doesn't expose them to the soaring health care costs that have plagued American businesses.

    This third way hybrid is based on the principle of "shared responsibility" between workers, employers and the government, all contributing their fair share to guarantee universal coverage. Participation for individuals is mandatory, not optional, just like it is mandatory to have a driver's license to drive an auto.

    These health care plans are similar to what Massachusetts recently enacted, but with two important differences. In France and Germany, the private insurance companies are nonprofits. Doctors, nurses and health care professionals are paid well, but you don't have corporate health care CEOs making hundreds of millions of dollars. Generally speaking, the profit motive has been wrung out of the system.

    The second key difference is in the area of cost controls. In France and Germany, fees for services are negotiated between representatives of the health care professions, the government, patient consumer representatives and the private nonprofit insurance companies. As in the American system for Medicare, together they establish a national agreement for treatment procedures, fee structures and rate ceilings that prevent health care costs from spiraling out of control.

    The Obama administration also could take notes from how the Europeans are jump-starting their economies. Europe sometimes is criticized for its lack of unity, but at times that multi-headed hydra affords certain advantages. Having so many powerful nation-states allows each nation to act as a laboratory for the others, learning from each other's successes and shortcomings.

    For example, during the massive financial meltdown in the fall of 2008, as markets reeled and the US announced a $700 billion bailout plan, each European country initially tried its own bailout formula. Within two weeks, the British strategy under Prime Minister Gordon Brown emerged as the most effective. The rest of Europe quickly adopted it, as did the US eventually since Treasurer Hank Paulson's plan had proven so ineffective.

    The European plan also includes stricter controls over the bailout money, equity in the banks and concessions from the bankers, all of which were lacking from the US bailout. And Europe already has enacted a fiscal stimulus worth hundreds of billions of dollars at the continental and national levels, while the US still awaits the Obama administration's plan.

    Europe's economic success speaks for itself. With a half billion people, Europe is the largest, wealthiest trading bloc in the world, producing nearly a third of the world's economy - as large as the US and China combined. While its critics have derided Europe as a land of "creeping socialism," in fact, Europe has more Fortune 500 companies than the US, China or Japan.

    Like the United States, Europe is fighting to pacify the rising economic floodwaters. But something about Europe and its "social capitalism" seems particularly well suited to this make-or-break century challenged by a worldwide economic slump, global warming and new geopolitical tensions. Team Obama would do well to take notes.

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    Steven Hill is director of the Political Reform Program at the New America Foundation. His book, "Europe Rising," will be published by the University of California Press in 2009.