The main conduit for much of this funding is the Climate Emergency Fund (CEF), a Beverly Hills-based nonprofit founded in 2019.

It supports groups engaging in direct action and civil disobedience to highlight climate urgency.

CEF has received significant donations from Hollywood figures and has granted money to organizations like Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, and Climate Defiance.

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Climate Defiance has emerged as one of the nation’s most extreme protest groups

By Thomas Catenacci

A fund backed by Hollywood stars including Jeremy Strong and Chelsea Handler provided nearly all of the funding for Climate Defiance, the far-left group that carries out illegal demonstrations like storming the field at the Congressional Baseball Game to “defeat” what it calls “fossil fuel fascism,” tax filings reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show. Free Beacon has the story.

The Hollywood-based Climate Emergency Fund (CEF) gave $250,000 to Climate Defiance’s political action arm and another $243,292 to its charitable arm in 2024, according to the filings. That means the CEF provided more than half of the two groups’ combined grant revenue and the entire revenue for the charitable arm, the Climate Defiance Foundation.

The records provide the most complete view of Climate Defiance’s finances since it was founded in 2023 for the purpose of pressuring officials to fight climate change, which it says is “an existential crisis that threatens every fiber of every being in every corner of the world.” It also comes shortly after the IRS formally granted the group tax-exempt status in July 2025.

The nearly three-year-old organization has emerged as one of the most extreme protest groups in the nation, regularly disrupting public events and speeches in an effort to force lawmakers to rapidly abandon fossil fuel power in favor of green energy. It accuses oil executives and other officials who support fossil fuels of “mass murder.” One of their activists once went viral for calling former West Virginia senator Joe Manchin a “sick fuck” and “hideous fiend” to his face over his support for a large natural gas pipeline.

Perhaps its most high-profile protest came during the annual Congressional Baseball Game in July 2024 when Washington, D.C., police arrested eight of its members after they stormed the field demanding an end to fossil fuels. “Make no mistake: It’s the Members of Congress who should be locked up,” the group wrote afterwards.

The group regularly protested former Biden administration officials, including then-energy secretary Jennifer Granholm and then-transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, yet still earned a private meeting with White House clean energy czar John Podesta in late 2023, where it urged him to block proposed gas export facilities. A few weeks later, in late January 2024, former president Joe Biden ceded to those demands. The White House touted Climate Defiance’s support for the action.

In addition to its climate activism, since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, Climate Defiance has deviated from its usual climate activism and vigorously protested against Israeli military actions. “There is no climate movement without moral clarity. And there is no future on a dying planet where we normalize the mass killing of children,” the group said after disrupting an event featuring liberal commentator Van Jones, who it accused of supporting “genocide.”

The CEF, for its part, was founded in 2019 and has since received millions of dollars from Hollywood elites including actors Strong, Handler, and Thomas Middleditch; Walt Disney heiress and filmmaker Abigail Disney; director Adam McKay; producers Shannon O’Leary Joy and Geralyn Dreyfous; Getty Oil heiress Aileen Getty; and Rory Kennedy, the daughter of former attorney general Robert F. Kennedy. Strong, McKay, Joy, and Kennedy all serve on the CEF’s board of directors.

In 2024, the CEF received $1.4 million from McKay’s foundation, $250,000 from the left-wing Rockefeller Family Fund, $15,000 from Getty’s foundation, $10,000 from singer and actress Barbra Streisand’s foundation, and $4,000 from actress Jane Fonda’s foundation.

Read the full story here.

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Key details on their funding:

• Climate Emergency Fund (CEF) as major backer:
  CEF has been the dominant funder since Climate Defiance’s founding in 2023. Reports indicate CEF provided over 90% of Climate Defiance’s budget in its first year and about 50% in the second year. In early reports (around 2024), this amounted to roughly $250,000 from CEF, representing about half of the group’s total funding at that time. CEF channels grants to groups like Climate Defiance, Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion, and others focused on civil disobedience and direct action.
• CEF’s own donors (Hollywood and elite connections):
  CEF was co-founded in 2019 by Rory Kennedy (documentarian and Kennedy family member) and Aileen Getty (Getty oil fortune heiress, who has personally donated over $1 million). Other major supporters include:
  • Adam McKay (filmmaker behind Don’t Look Up), who pledged and largely contributed $4 million to CEF starting in 2022 and serves on its board.
  • Abigail Disney (filmmaker and Disney heiress).
  • Actors like Jeremy Strong (Succession), Chelsea Handler, and others linked through donations or board roles.
    CEF has thousands of smaller donors (over 5,800 reported in some accounts), ranging from modest amounts to large gifts.
• Climate Defiance’s own fundraising:
  The group describes itself as “scrappy” and “grassroots,” raising additional funds directly from individual donors. They accept non-tax-deductible donations via their website and tax-deductible gifts through their 501(c)(3) arm (Climate Defiance Foundation, which gained tax-exempt status around mid-2025). They also use platforms like Chuffed for campaigns (e.g., a legal defense fund). No evidence points to a formal “patron fund” program on their site—funding appeals emphasize grassroots support alongside institutional backing from CEF.
• Other notes:
  Climate Defiance operates both a 501(c)(4) for advocacy/political work and a 501(c)(3) for tax-deductible donations. Funding criticism often highlights perceived hypocrisy (e.g., oil heiress backing anti-fossil fuel actions) and frames CEF-backed groups as “radical” due to tactics like confrontations with politicians and executives.