Axios

A new International Energy Agency report finds that worldwide carbon dioxide emissions from energy — which are the lion's share of global emissions — ticked upward by 1.4% in 2017 after a three-year plateau.

Why it matters: The findings underscore the immense challenge of reigning in heat-trapping emissions in an increasingly energy-hungry world. Carbon dioxide output is on pace to eventually bring about global warming levels that blow past the targets of the Paris climate agreement.

Responding to shareholder pressure, Duke Energy is releasing today a climate-change report that sketches a drastically changed electricity mix in a carbon-constrained future.

Why it matters: As one of America’s largest utilities, its speculation on this front is a bellwether for how the country’s electricity mix may change in the decades ahead. Duke provides electricity to more than seven million customers in the Carolinas, the Midwest and Florida.

Yesterday's Interior Department sale of Gulf of Mexico oil-and-gas leases drew modest action, with companies offering roughly $125 million in winning bids (and $139 million in total bids). The chart below shows the companies that submitted the highest total winning offers in Lease Sale 250 and how many blocs they successfully bid on.

One reason it matters: The expectations game. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told a major energy conference in Houston this month that the sale would be a "bellwether" for industry interest in new Gulf leases.

The newly-released Capitol Hill government spending plan rejects the White House's push to sharply cut renewable energy R&D and kill an Energy Department program that seeds breakthrough technology innovation.

Why it matters: There's little GOP appetite on Capitol Hill for the White House's energy spending agenda, even as Republicans largely support the Trump administration's efforts to unwind regulations and expand fossil fuel development.

Tesla Inc. shareholders approved $2.6 billion worth of stock options for CEO Elon Musk, dependent on meeting "a set of ambitious financial goals," Bloomberg reports.

The bigger picture: The performance award was criticized by some, asking why Musk "needed more equity to stay motivated," per Bloomberg. But after Musk's successful SpaceX launch in February, concerns have surfaced that "he's looking to lessen his involvement with Tesla." Investors of the company say the award — which binds him to leading Tesla for the next ten years — will help "drive the business forward."

Tasked with defending the Trump administration’s 2019 Department of Energy budget to a Senate committee yesterday, Secretary Rick Perry instead hinted that senators should overrule White House cuts to energy innovation.

“If this Congress, this committee, supports the funding of that, it will be operated in a way you will be most pleased at,” Perry said of ARPA-E, an agency that invests in breakthrough energy technology bets and is slated for elimination in Trump’s budget.

Both sides of a lawsuit on damages from climate change will today in court reaffirm the scientific consensus that human activity is extremely likely to have caused global warming over the last century.

Why it matters: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has said he wants to host a public debate discussing to what degree humans are driving the Earth’s temperature to rise. Wednesday’s federal court hearing in San Francisco, in which California cities are suing big oil companies alleging they’re liable for damages related to climate change, is surprisingly providing that debate.