The Pope is a tough act to follow, but Martin O’Malley made a good show of it. Last week, on the same day that the pontiff released his new encyclical calling for a global effort to combat climate change, O’Malley released his own plan for reducing emissions and staving off global climate catastrophe. It’s an aggressive platform that frames the fight against climate change as a moral imperative, rather than simply a question of science and economics, and in an op-ed for USA Today, the former governor of Maryland said that climate change “is at the center of my campaign for president.”

Well hot damn, Martin. As the Huffington Post’s Kate Sheppard notes, the O’Malley plan sets a very high standard for other Democratic candidates to meet. He directly rejects the “all of the above” energy policy favored by the White House (and quite a few Republicans) and instead calls for an end to the use of fossil fuels within the next 35 years. In keeping with the framing of climate change as a moral issue, O’Malley makes a point that “ending fossil fuel use is a public health imperative, and would extend the lives of 200,000 Americans each year.” He also says outright that he’d reject approval for the Keystone XL pipeline.