Jane Fonda joins climate protest over Biden’s ‘broken promises’ as he attends ritzy campaign fundraiser

As President Joe Biden prepared to kick off his 2024 campaign fundraising in New York City, climate activists gathered several blocks away to protest what they say is Mr Biden’s broken promises on climate change.

Joining the climate activists was actor and celebrity activist Jane Fonda, who gave an impassioned speech on fighting back against fossil fuel use.

“Unlike some of the older folks and some of the older climate organisations, you understand that to confront the climate crisis and save this planet, we have to phase out fossil fuels,” Ms Fonda said to the group of protesters.

Protesters held signs demanding Mr Biden put an end to fossil fuel projects like the Willow project, which Mr Biden approved in March.

The Willow project is a controversial oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope.

“We’ve been polite, we’ve marched, we’ve protested, we’ve written, we’ve made speeches. We have to up the ante now,” Ms Fonda said. “We have little time left, the opportunity to save the planet and our future – the window on that is closing rapidly and we have to do something about it.”

Ms Fonda called on people to “be brave” and fight back against powerful people and organisations – the exact thing the climate protesters intended to do.

The group, which featured people from organisations like Climate Defiance, Sunrise Movement NYC, New York Communities for Change, Food& Water Watch, Climate Defenders and Climate Famlies NYC, met at the the Doris C Freedman Plaza to march up to the Upper East Side where Mr Biden was expected to appear.

Mr Biden’s campaign fundraising event is being hosted by former Blackstone executive Tony James. Tickets to the event were going for $25,000 per person, according to a memo obtained by CNBC.

The president is expected to attend a dinner at the home of George Logothetis, executive chairman of Libra Group.

However, climate activists are angry Mr Biden is running for re-election after they say he broke his promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.

“Biden has broken all of his climate promises and people like me, people across the country, put him in office because of what he said he would do on climate,” Liat Olenick, a climate activist part of the Climate Families NYC group, told The Independent.

Along with the Willow project in Alaska, Mr Biden’s administration backed the Mountain Valley pipeline, too.

Ryan, a 20-year-old activist with the Sunrise Movement NYC group, said he was “taking out my anger and my disappointment in the presidency”.

“Biden needs to step up, our government needs to step up in fighting for climate justice,” Ryan said.

Steven Donzinger, an attorney who represented farmers and indigenous people who suffered health and environmental damage caused by oil drilling, criticised Mr Biden for “taking corporate money.”

“The president is over there taking corporate money,” Mr Donzinger said. “He claims to be the climate president yet he’s taking corporate money from these industries that are destroying the planet. You cannot do both.”

Mr Donzinger encouraged protesters to “hold [Mr Biden] accountable” for his actions.