Arnold Schwarzenegger: ‘No one gives a s— about’ climate change — this is what it should be called instead
Austrian-US actor, filmmaker, politician and activist Arnold Schwarzenegger gives a speech during the opening ceremony of the R20 Regions of Climate Action Austrian World Summit in Vienna, Austria, on May 28, 2019.
Georg Hochmuth | Afp | Getty Images
Arnold Schwarzenegger says the global effort to mitigate the effects of climate change is being crippled by its fundamental communication problem.
“As long as they keep talking about global climate change, they are not gonna go anywhere. ‘Cause no one gives a s— about that,” Schwarzenegger told CBS’ “Sunday Morning” correspondent Tracy Smith in a profile that aired Sunday.
“So my thing is, let’s go and rephrase this and communicate differently about it and really tell people — we’re talking about pollution. Pollution creates climate change, and pollution kills,” Schwarzenegger said.
The 75-year-old bodybuilder, actor, and former governor of California has become a public voice about climate change through his role as the host of the Austrian World Summit, a global climate change conference.
“I’m on a mission to go and reduce greenhouse gases worldwide,” Schwarzenegger told CBS, “because I’m into having a healthy body and a healthy Earth. That’s what I’m fighting for. And that’s my crusade.”
Anthropogenic global warming is caused by an increase of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is released when fossil fuels such as coal and oil are burned.
As long as they keep talking about global climate change, they are not gonna go anywhere. ‘Cause no one gives a s—about that.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Bodybuilder, actor, former governor of California
The momentum toward fighting climate change has grown in recent years. The global investment in producing clean energy — that is, energy that doesn’t generate greenhouse gases — is surpassing the global investment in fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency. In 2023, $1.7 trillion is expected to go into clean technologies, including renewables, electric vehicles, nuclear power, grids, storage, low-emissions fuels, efficiency improvements and heat pumps. That’s more than the approximately $1 trillion expected to go into coal, gas and oil, the IEA said in a report released Thursday.
Still, the emissions generated from energy globally are still rising, although by only 1% in 2022, which was less than feared, the IEA said in March.
With global carbon emissions at record highs, there is a 50% chance that in nine years global warming will exceed the target of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels that was established by the Paris Climate Accord, according to the annual update published in November by the Global Carbon Project, an international scientific collaboration that measures carbon emissions.
Efforts to address climate change have increased substantially but are still insufficient.
In the United States, 54% of adults view climate change as a major threat to the country’s well-being, according to survey data from Pew Research Center. That nationwide average includes a substantial split along party lines. Almost 8 in 10 Democrats, 78%, say climate change is a major threat to the country’s well-being, and that’s up from 58% a decade ago. Meanwhile, only about 1 in 4 Republicans, 23%, say climate change is a major threat to the country’s well-being. That’s nearly unchanged from the 22% of Republicans who said climate change was a major threat in 2013, according to Pew Research Center data.
On May 16, USA Today published an op-ed Schwarzenegger wrote in which he called for the environmental movement to adapt to changing times, which he said includes rebranding of communications surrounding climate change and embracing growth that involves clean energy projects.
“We need a new environmentalism based on building and growing and common sense. Old environmentalism was afraid of growth. It hated building. Many of you know this style — protesting every new development, chaining yourself to construction equipment, and using lawsuits and permitting to slow everything down,” Schwarzenegger wrote in the op-ed.
“[T]oday I call for a new environmentalism, based on building the clean energy projects we need as fast as we can. We have to build, build, build,” Schwarzenegger wrote.
Waymo driverless taxi parks in lower Manhattan in New York City, U.S., Nov. 26, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Waymo, the robotaxi unit owned by Alphabet, has crossed 450,000 weekly paid rides, according to a letter from investor Tiger Global viewed by CNBC.
That’s almost double the milestone it hit in April, when Waymo reported 250,000 paid robotaxi rides a week in the U.S.
“Waymo is the clear leader in autonomous driving, recently surpassing 450k trips per week with a product that is 10x safer than human drivers,” Tiger Global wrote in a letter to investors announcing the launch of a new fund.
Tiger’s 450,000-ride estimate is based on publicly available data. Waymo is one of the largest positions in Tiger’s 2024 fund.
Waymo declined to comment.
This year, Waymo has also announced a slew of expansions, including its debut on freeways in three cities, and autonomous driving in cities including Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando.
The latest milestone is also another sign that Waymo is continuing to push ahead of aspiring self-driving competitor Tesla, which has run limited pilots in Austin and operates a ride-hailing service in the Bay Area.
Tesla vehicles include human drivers or safety supervisors on board and are not driverless like Waymo’s fleet vehicles.
According to Tesla’s latest earnings call, executives said the company hit a quarter of a million miles with its fleet in Austin, and more than one million in the Bay Area. In July, Waymo announced 100 million total fully autonomous miles.
CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this article.
Technology
Tiger Global launches new fund eyeing $2.2 billion raise as it takes more disciplined approach
Tiger Global Management announced Monday the launch of its latest venture capital fund, Private Investment Partners 17, according to a letter to investors viewed by CNBC.
Tiger is targeting a raise of $2.2 billion for the fund, according to a person familiar with the firm’s strategy who declined to be named in order to discuss internal matters.
The hedge fund wrote that it’s expecting PIP 17 to be similar in “strategy, size and construction” to its earliest vintages and its most recent, PIP 16, which targeted $6 billion but ultimately closed at $2.2 billion.
The largest positions in PIP 16 are OpenAI and Waymo, stakes that have helped performance rebound. In a call with investors, Tiger said that PIP 16 is up 33% year-to-date, while PIP 15 is up 16%.
Compared to the megafunds of the early 2020s, the latest raise target signals a pivot to a more disciplined strategy for Tiger Global.
The firm was one of the biggest forces in the startup ecosystem over the last half-decade, but has seen heavy markdowns and slower deployment in the last few years.
In 2021, the heyday of its “spray and pray” approach, it led 212 rounds, according to Crunchbase data. This year, it made just nine new private investments.
Tiger first invested in OpenAI in 2021 at a valuation of less than $16 billion and in Waymo that same year at $39 billion.
The Tiger Global letter and audio of the investor call obtained by CNBC also signal some concerns about the potential for a bubble in artificial intelligence.
“[V]aluations are elevated, and, in our view, at times unsupported by company fundamentals,” the firm wrote in the letter. “We also recognize the importance of approaching a technological shift of this magnitude with some humility.”
The strategy that founder Chase Coleman laid out is to prune aggressively and reinforce its biggest winners.
Tiger says it has sold more than 85 companies from PIP 15, generating over $1 billion in proceeds.
That money can now be recycled into follow-in investments for companies it considers winners.
Some of the names Tiger said it would concentrate on include Revolut, a digital banking startup, and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.
Other companies Tiger is focusing on include police tech company Flock Safety, EV company Harbinger, e-commerce startup Rokt, freight company Cargomatic, and stablecoin startup BVNK, the investor presentation showed.
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