This is what a real climate plan looks like: Martin O’Malley’s bold approach sets the standard. [View all]

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Martin O'Malley laid out an aggressive, moral case for tackling climate change. Let's hope it catches on.

he 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.

O’Malley has long been a hawk on climate change, and this platform is in keeping with his record. Much of what he’s laid out in this document is meant to emphasize that he is very much to the left of Hillary Clinton on the issue. The last time Hillary ran for president, she toured through Appalachia talking up the benefits of “clean coal” as part of her last-ditch effort to steal the nomination from Barack Obama. This time around she’s been a bit cagier on climate policy, though just recently she came out in favor of tweaking the Renewable Fuel Standard to get more biofuels onto the market. By laying down a clear and ambitious goal for climate policy, O’Malley is injecting some clarity into the climate change debate and giving environmental activists something to rally around. He’s also undoubtedly trying to steal some of the enthusiasm surrounding Bernie Sanders, a darling of the environmental movement.

O’Malley’s climate change strategy gets to the aggravating paradox at the heart of the climate change policy debate: the urgency of the matter and the high cost of inaction require an aggressive response, but the aggressiveness of the response lessens its political viability. So the harder you try to get something meaningful done, the less likely you are to actually do anything.

http://www.salon.com/2015/06/22/this_is_what_a_real_climate_plan_looks_like_martin_omalleys_bold_approach_sets_the_standard/