The road to my caucus location in Iowa on Monday will wind along an Iowa River valley littered with the reminders of record flooding and drought since the last election—and a sea change on voters’ priorities on climate action since 2008.

Climate change, like the candidates’ climate action plans, may have received scant attention in the presidential debates and media.

But in Iowa, a state that leads in wind energy production and faces severe economic and agricultural risks from extreme weather, Bernie Sanders‘ bold climate action plan and long-time track record to take on the fossil fuel lobby is uniting a new generation of Iowa farmers and clean energy entrepreneurs, inspiring a groundswell of student activism, and tapping into the real and urgent climate leadership emerging in cities like Des Moines, Dubuque and Iowa City.

As the only candidate standing up to the Bakken pipeline, fracking and the fossil fuel lobby, and laying out a plan for farmers and displaced workers to be part of a clean energy revolution, Sanders is not just Iowa’s climate champion.

A Sanders victory in Iowa next Monday could place the urgency of climate action back to the forefront of national debate—and electrify a new coalition of clean energy voters across the country.

All Democrats, of course, have touted their clean energy and climate action bona fides. But there is a huge divide between Hillary Clinton‘s and Martin O’Malley‘s notable renewable energy plans, and Sanders’ long-time track record of standing up to the fossil fuel lobby and calling for an end to huge fossil fuel subsidies, as well as extraction on public lands.