Axios

Arnold Schwarzenegger told Politico at South by Southwest on Sunday that he is going to sue oil companies “for knowingly killing people all over the world," comparing oil companies to the tobacco industry that knew smoking could kill people, but for years denied what they knew.

Key quote: He said that since 1959 oil companies knew fossil fuels caused global warming, "I don’t think there’s any difference: If you walk into a room and you know you’re going to kill someone, it’s first degree murder; I think it’s the same thing with the oil companies.”

As he set an audacious Mars target, Elon Musk — the Tesla and SpaceX visionary, introduced as liking things that go fast and go far — urged the young, ambitious crowd at South by Southwest in Austin yesterday to look up in more ways than one:

His message: Life can't just be about solving one sad problem after another. We need things that inspire us, that make us glad to wake up in the morning and be part of humanity. 

HOUSTON — On the outskirts of America's oil capital is a carbon capture project poised to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in new federal tax credits. There's a catch, though: it uses the carbon to extract oil.

Why it matters: Capturing carbon to extract oil seems counterintuitive to addressing climate change, but experts who have crunched the numbers say this technology is a necessary, if controversial, step that's helped along by these kinds of projects.

The last few days have brought increasingly firm signs that Saudi Aramco's massive international IPO won't happen in 2018.

Why it matters: The IPO is designed to raise tens of billions of dollars to help support the kingdom's economic diversification plans. The selection of the main listing venue is also high-stakes, given the massive fees and action it will bring.

A new analysis finds that in 2017 the world's largest asset managers often declined to support shareholder resolutions that pushed large power and oil companies to respond more aggressively to climate change risks.

Why it matters: The report arrives as activist investors and their allies are increasingly pushing large energy companies to disclose more about their plans to address climate change. There's a particular focus on pushing companies to model how their business will fare in a hypothetical carbon-constrained world in which emissions are on a trajectory to hold the global temperature increase to two degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

South Sudan’s elite are using the country’s main revenue source, oil, to fund militias and atrocities in the country, according to documents obtained by The Sentry, an investigative group founded by George Clooney and John Prendergast.

Political backdrop: South Sudan has been in a state of turmoil since the ongoing civil war broke out in 2013. The violence has left famine in its wake and millions of South Sudanese internally displaced and seeking refuge in neighboring countries. A ceasefire signed in December hasn't been followed.