CULTURE

Jane Fonda Pledges to Never Buy a Car Again

Last year, Jane Fonda promised she’ll never buy another item of clothing again. Now, the climate change activist is expanding her environmentalist pledge.


jane fonda countdown
Image courtesy of TED.

Last year, Jane Fonda promised she’ll never buy another item of clothing again. Now, the climate change activist is taking her environmentalist pledge a step further.

Even during the coronavirus pandemic, Fonda has kept up with her weekly Fire Drill Fridays, where she often peacefully protests the dangers of climate change in front of the United States Capitol.

At the TED Countdown conference on Saturday, Prince William (who made his TED talk debut), the Pope, Jaden Smith, Mark Ruffalo, Cynthia Erivo and more joined Fonda virtually to talk about the devastating threats climate change can pose to our environment.

Fonda co-hosted an hour of the Countdown program with 18-year-old climate change activist Xiye Bastida, where they asked questions like what happens to our carbon emissions and where do they go in the atmosphere, how have we used our fossil fuel budget, and shared actions that everyone can take to limit their carbon footprint.

The first commitment? Never buying a car (or two-wheeler with internal combustion engine) again. Fonda pledged she will not purchase a vehicle with a combustion engine. “Yes, I can certainly commit to that! You bet,” she said. “And I hope many others will, too.”

It’s sort of a follow-up promise to last fall’s pledge Fonda made, inspired by Greta Thunberg. The actress promised that the red wool coat she often wears to her weekly Fire Drill Fridays would be the final item of clothing she would ever buy. “When I talk to people about, ‘We don’t really need to keep shopping. We shouldn’t look to shopping for our identity. We don’t need more stuff,’ then I have to walk the walk too,” she said last November. “So I’m not buying any more clothes.” Since then, Fonda has been known to repeat outfits she wears to big events, like her Oscars dress this year (a repeat from Cannes) and her black sequined suit at last year’s GCAAP Empower Party (a repeat from the Glamour Women of the Year Awards).

At the Countdown conference, even Pope Francis echoed Fonda’s sentiment about global waste. “The current economic system is unsustainable,” he said. “We are faced with the moral imperative, and the practical urgency, to rethink many things: the way we produce; the way we consume; our culture of waste; our short-term vision; the exploitation of the poor and our indifference towards them; the growing inequalities and our dependence on harmful energy sources. We need to think about all these challenges.”

Related: Jane Fonda Joins TikTok to “Work Out for the Planet”