You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Hi, it's Emily Kwong, Shortwave co-host here with Rebecca Hersher,

friend of the show, friend of the earth, friend to creatures big and small.

Okay, all right, don't get carried away.

And a friendly NPR climate reporter.

Indeed, I am friendly in that context.

Why are you here, though?

I'm here because now that it's 2023,

we're officially one year closer to a bunch of important climate goals.

So I thought we might chat about that, but in kind of an unexpected way.

That sounds fun, actually.

What climate goals are we one year closer to?

Well, 2030 is the deadline for the US to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half.

And 2050 is the global deadline to get to zero emissions.

And both of those goals are really important if we want to avoid catastrophic warming later in the century.

These are some big goals.

Are there any closer goals, though?

I mean, for this year, yeah, for next year,

because 2030, 2050 later this century, that is a long time from now.

There are closer goals, but I refuse to tell you about them, actually,

because today we're going to focus on the future and talk about that exact thing you just said.

Why today, tomorrow and this year feel so much more important than decades in the future.

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