Good morning, Quartz readers!

It’s early days in the new US presidency, but Joe Biden could hardly have presented a cleaner break from his predecessor on climate change.

On his first day in office, Biden signed an executive order for the US to rejoin the Paris Agreement, followed by another that revokes the permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline and directs all federal agencies to “immediately review and take appropriate action to address” at least 100 Donald Trump-era policies or regulations that are damaging to the environment or public health.

Biden’s administration followed that up by announcing a who’s-who of progressive thinkers joining the Department of Energy, including positions focused on environmental justice and niche but essential technologies like carbon capture. He also re-established a panel tasked with calculating the “social cost of carbon,” a metric used to approximate climate damage that is essential for developing new regulations. And John Kerry, the new special climate envoy, has already set goals for global renewable energy deployment and reforestation.

There’s a lot more to come: Administration officials have said they will develop new rules for methane emissions and vehicle mileage standards, restore acreage that Trump cut from national monuments, and pile money into a forthcoming $2 trillion pandemic stimulus package to pay for grid updates, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, hydrogen fuel, and other clean energy priorities.

Biden’s whole-of-government approach to climate change means that more of his agenda is likely to succeed, and faster, than Barack Obama’s, which rested mostly on a few flagship initiatives. But with a more conservative Supreme Court, the inevitable legal challenges from fossil fuel industry groups, and a pandemic recovery that will be powered to some extent by oil and gas, Biden’s battle is still uphill.

Still, one thing is clear: Trump’s damaging climate legacy is already going up in smoke. And with the US reasserting its climate credibility on the global stage, big emitters like China and Brazil will find it harder to wriggle out of making stronger carbon commitments.

“Pretty much everything [Trump] did will ultimately be swept away,” says Dan Lashof, US director for the World Resources Institute. “The biggest problem is that we lost four years, and there’s a lot of catching up to do.” —Tim McDonnell