Private jets, superyachts and red carpet speeches... when celebrities champion climate action, do they help the cause or expose their own hypocrisy? It’s a question worth asking again, as Prince William announces that the 2025 Earthshot Prize ceremony will be held in Brazil – a star-studded prelude to the UN climate summit set to take place there months later.
In a promotional video this month, David Beckham, Cate Blanchett and Heidi Klum lent their celebrity clout to the cause, calling for urgent action to protect the planet’s ecosystems.
Initiatives such as Earthshot aim to link visibility with concrete action – but critics say star-led campaigns can just as easily blur the lines between advocacy and image management.
“At what point do celebrities carry a message of restraint?” asks political scientist Florent Gougou, of Sciences Po, who studies public opinion and climate awareness. “Their travel is anything but restrained. Their lifestyle is anything but restrained.”
He points to the example of Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton: “He’s vegan, OK. But at the same time, he flies around the world to race high-emission cars. That kind of inconsistency damages the message.”
Words versus actions
Few Hollywood actors are as publicly committed to the environment as Leonardo DiCaprio.
Since launching his own conservation foundation in 1998, he’s backed dozens of green projects and served on the boards of major NGOs including the World Wildlife Fund, the International Fund for Animal Welfare and Oceans 5.
He’s also produced and narrated two documentaries about the climate crisis – The 11th Hour (2007) and Before the Flood (2016) – and played a climate scientist in the 2021 satire Don’t Look Up.
In a video message released a week before the 2024 US election, DiCaprio urged Americans to vote Democrat, calling Donald Trump’s climate record “a disaster”. Trump, he said, continued to deny both the facts and the science.
"He withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Accord and rolled back critical environmental protections. Now he’s promised the oil and gas industry that he’ll get rid of any regulation they want in exchange for a billion-dollar donation. Climate change is killing the earth and ruining our economy,” DiCaprio warned.
But critics point to a gap between DiCaprio’s messaging and his lifestyle. Photos of him holidaying on yachts that burn hundreds of litres of diesel per hour are regular tabloid fare.
And like many celebrities, he’s been accused of relying on private jets to get to climate events.
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Mixed messages
The same goes for Harrison Ford. He’s delivered passionate speeches about the climate crisis – including a viral moment from an interview on TV channel France 2 during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where he said: “If we don’t move our ass now, we’re going to lose this planet.”
Last month he made an appeal for action to save the oceans at the SOS Ocean event in Paris, stressing the importance of global leadership in this fight.
Speaking via video message, he said: "I've never explored the bottom of the ocean or sailed around the world. But I've been alive for 82 years and I've spent 35 of them working with Conservation International, fighting for nature and people... I've seen my generation drop the ball again and again – warnings unheeded, promises broken... There is no more room for distraction, no more time for delay. No one else is coming to save us... Let's get to work."
But Ford is also a longtime aviation enthusiast who owns multiple planes and once admitted flying up the coast “for a cheeseburger”.
Despite those contradictions, Gougou says the influence of celebrities needs to be put into perspective.
“Information about scientific knowledge relating to climate change and biodiversity loss, on the one hand, and people’s direct experience of its effects on the other – such as hotter summers or pressure on natural resources – have a much greater impact on public awareness than any celebrity commitment,” he told RFI.
France has also leaned on celebrity support to promote climate awareness.
In 2015, ahead of the Cop21 summit and the signing of the Paris Agreement, then-president François Hollande brought in actresses Marion Cotillard and Mélanie Laurent as informal climate ambassadors.
Their role was to help draw public attention to environmental issues in the months leading up to the summit.
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Beyond the spotlight
The Earthshot Prize, launched by Prince William in 2020, offers £1 million to five winners whose innovations aim to “repair the planet”. Past recipients include projects focused on coral reef restoration, clean energy and carbon capture technologies.
The choice of Brazil as host country reflects not just its environmental importance, but a desire to connect celebrity-driven visibility with tangible action in the run-up to Cop30.
But even that, says Gougou, has its limits. “People don’t need another documentary,” he said. “They need to see real change – in policy, in their own lives, and in the behaviour of those who claim to lead.”
