Jane Fonda on her climate activism journey and the stakes in the 2024 election: “We can’t lose another 4 years”

She may be an actor on screen, but she’s an activist at heart. Between calling for an end to the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, rallying with the women’s movement, and fighting for Indigenous rights, Jane Fonda has marched and protested nearly her entire life. 

But five years ago, as she walked under a hazy orange sky filled with wildfire smoke, she felt like she still hadn’t done enough. This was not the bucolic and smog-free California she experienced growing up at the end of a dirt road in the Santa Monica Mountains. 

“This is way beyond what I thought it was,” she told CBS News. “This isn’t just about the environment. This is about the whole planet.”

A switch went off — what Fonda describes as a “lightning bolt right into my solar plexus.” She’d always had a fondness for nature, but had never been vocal about protecting it. She realized in that moment that she needed to use her platform to draw attention to the climate crisis.

The now 86-year-old Hollywood star traded her “Grace and Frankie” script for “On Fire,” by Naomi Klein and picked up the phone to call the then-head of Greenpeace, Annie Leonard, to tell her she was moving to D.C. “I’m gonna raise a ruckus. Can you help?” she said.

This is just one of many moments Fonda shared about her climate activism journey in an interview with CBS News national environmental correspondent David Schechter. 

In the candid conversation, Fonda details why she joined the fight to save our planet and why she’s urging others to join the cause, especially with the 2024 presidential election less than two months away. “We can’t lose another four years,” she said.

On why 2024 is so pivotal

The stakes of this election are so high in Fonda’s mind that she told her agent that she couldn’t take on any acting work this year. 

“When the election is happening that’s going to determine the future, I couldn’t do it,” she told CBS News.

Fonda is supporting Vice President Kamala Harris, believing the Harris-Walz ticket would fight for climate solutions and make progress on ambitious targets like cutting our fossil fuel emissions in half by the end of the decade. 

“I am really involved this time because of the climate emergency,” Fonda said. 

A Trump-Vance win, she believes, would send the country in the wrong direction by increasing our reliance on fossil fuels. (One of Trump’s slogans is “Drill, baby, drill.”) “We can’t allow this to happen in the United States,” Fonda said, “not when the future of the planet is at stake.”

She recognizes that young people may be tempted to sit the election out, especially if they’re frustrated or hurt by what’s happening in Gaza. But her message is clear: “Show us your power! Vote!”

“Do not sit this election out, no matter how angry you are,” she urged young voters.

On the role of celebrity endorsements

Fonda isn’t the only celebrity using her voice to rally political support. After the presidential debate on Sept. 10, Taylor Swift announced her endorsement of Harris on Instagram, signing the post “Childless Cat Lady,” a jab at Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance. 

“I thought it was really smart of her to choose to do it after the debate,” said Fonda. “I think it’s going to have a big impact.” 

According to vote.org data, from 9 p.m. to midnight the night of the debate, the website saw a 585% spike in people using their register/verify tool, compared to that same time frame the previous eight days. And vote.gov said it received 405,999 visitors through a link Taylor Swift shared in the 24 hours after she posted it. The site includes information about how to register to vote and cast a ballot, and directs users to state sites where they can register.

Whether it’s knocking on doors or posting on Instagram, Fonda believes celebrities can have enormous sway. They act as “repeaters,” she said, referring to the electronic devices that help amplify and expand the reach of signals. “They pick up signals from the valley that are weak, and they distribute them so they have a larger audience,” she said. “That’s what celebrities do, like me.”

On empowering climate candidates across the country

Outside of the presidential race, Fonda is also focusing on mayoral, city council and state races. Getting climate champions elected to those offices is the main mission of Jane Fonda Climate PAC. Founded in 2022, the group’s informal motto, promulgated by Fonda, is: “If we can’t change the minds of the people in power, we need to change the people in power.” 

“There’s this disconnect between what science is saying and what elected officials will allow to become policy,” she told CBS News. “That has to change.”

Down-ballot candidates may seem like a drop in the bucket in the larger battle to combat climate change, but Fonda says the goal is to develop leaders who can rise up into larger positions. They also have the power to challenge projects in their own backyards, like Line 5, a pipeline that runs through Michigan and Wisconsin, backed by Canadian oil company Enbridge, said Fonda. 

“We need local people there that will stop it.”

In its first year, Jane Fonda Climate PAC raised $2 million and helped get 42 “climate champions” elected to office. This year, the PAC is looking to make an even bigger splash by backing 100 candidates across multiple states, including the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona. 

On how a climate crisis calls for collective solution

Fonda is a firm believer that the power not only rests inside the halls of government, but outside in the streets. It’s a sort of symbiotic relationship, in her eyes: get people elected to government and then make them take action.

“Nonviolent civil disobedience and protests historically have changed history,” she told CBS News. “But you need people in the halls of power with ears and a heart to hear the protests, to hear the demands.”

Fonda is no stranger to civil disobedience. In 2019, she was arrested five times during Fire Drill Fridays, a protest series she started in Washington, D.C. that was designed to draw attention to global warming. Fonda even spent the night of her 82nd birthday behind bars. “I knew that would have an impact,” she told CBS News. 

Before that, the last time Fonda spent the night in jail was in 1970, when she was 32, while on a speaking tour protesting the Vietnam War. She was known as an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War and made a controversial trip to the embattled country in 1972.

Fonda says she started Fire Drill Fridays because she realized you can get a lot more done when you join forces with other people fighting for the same cause. A collective crisis demands a collective solution, she says. 

Asked about her advice for young people joining the cause, she echoed this sentiment: “If you want to go fast, go alone,” she said. “If you want to go far, go together.”

After nearly 60 years of acting, dozens of movies, three marriages and six arrests, Fonda feels like she’s right where she belongs.

“I think a lot about being on my deathbed, and I know that when you’re on your deathbed you want to feel that it’s been worthwhile,” she told CBS News. “For the first time I felt my life has value.”

She may be in her final act, but she has no intention of slowing down. She’s currently traveling nationwide to visit down-ballot candidates endorsed by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC and support the Harris-Waltz ticket. Just last week, she was in Ann Arbor, Michigan, knocking on doors for the campaign. 

“If celebrity is a currency, which it seems to be, why are you spending it this way?” Schecter asked Fonda during the interview. 

After a brief pause, Fonda responded, “What other way would there be to spend it?” 

The interview with Jane Fonda was coordinated by Covering Climate Now and done in partnership with The Guardian and Rolling Stone. 

contributed to this report.