Cop30 in talks to hire PR firm that worked for lobby seeking weaker Amazon protections

Revealed: Edelman worked for Brazilian trade group accused of pushing for environmental rollbacks in Amazon

Edelman, the world's largest public relations agency, is in talks to work with the Cop30 team organising the UN climate summit in the Amazon later this year despite its prior connections to a major trade group accused of lobbying to roll back measures to protect the area from deforestation, the Guardian and the Centre for Climate Reporting can reveal.

The summit is set to take place in November in the city of Belem on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, which has been ravaged by deforestation linked to Brazil's powerful agriculture industry. For the first time, the talks will be at the epicenter of the climate crisis", the summit's president wrote last week. As the Cop comes to the Amazon, forests will naturally be a central topic," he added.