Edelman, the world’s largest public relations agency, is in talks to work with the COP30 team that organizes the United Nations Climate Summit in Amazon later this year, although its previous relations with a major business group accused of pressure to decrease measures to protect the region from the removal of forests can reveal the Guardian and the Climate Report Center.
The summit is scheduled to be held in November in the city of Bilim on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, which was destroyed due to the removal of the forests associated with the strong agricultural industry in Brazil. For the first time, the talks will be “at the Climate Crisis Center”, the head of the summit wrote last week. “When the policeman comes to the Amazon, the forests will be an essential topic,” he added.
However, questions are now being asked about a possible conflict of interests after his team confirmed the Guardian and CCR that he is considering bringing in the American public relations giant to Aidelman to work at the summit. In addition to its previous work with some of the largest fossil fuel companies in the world, Edelman previously developed a “communication strategy Files for the registration of the American foreign agent.
“The conflicts of Edman’s interest at a climate conference are almost unreliable,” said Denkan Missel, CEO of Clean Creatives, who is carrying out campaigns for the public relations and advertisements to reduce relations with fossil fuel agents. He said that the agency “maintains at least dozens of contracts with fossil fuel pollutants such as Shell and Chevron.”
“This conflict of interest makes it impossible for Edelman to be effective advocates of the COP30 business schedule, and to put the results of the talks in danger.”
Edelman defends her approach, saying that she is working with a group of companies and institutions to help customers reduce emissions while meeting global energy requirements.
Brazil is the largest product and source of soybeans in the world. Instead of owning farms directly, most of the major companies in the source of the country’s soy industry are a complex network of suppliers throughout Brazil. Among the members of the Brazilian vegetable oil industry group, known as ABIOVE, the largest soy merchants, such as Cargill, Bunge and Cofco. JBS, The Brazilian MeatsPacker The complex beef supply chain was linked to the removal of the forests From the Amazon, it is also a member.
In 2006, ABIVE members agreed not to get the soybean source from the recently cleared spaces from Amazon, a major landmark due to experts to reduce the impact of industry on the removal of forests in the region significantly. But in 2022, an investigation was revealed by the guardian – in cooperation with the investigative press office, which was discovered by Greenpeace, Recrotitter Brasil and Ecostorm – that Cargill bought soy from a farm linked to the removal of forests in the Amazon. Recently, ABIVE seeks to adjust the endowment in 2006, which worries activists to put the rainforest in danger again.
Meanwhile, the removal of the forests continued elsewhere. Partially driven by the prosperous soy industry in the country, the removal of forests in Cerrado, the vast herbal lands in the center of Brazil, have reached record levels in recent years. The Global Witness campaign group described it as a “environmental disaster” for the most Savanna in the world.
A similar agreement was offered to the Toya from Amazon for the first time to Cerrado in 2017 by a group of 60 NGOs. That is, nearly twenty major companies, including McDonald’s and Tesco Wall Mart, supported their goals. In 2020, and The President of Abiof said Such an agreement on Cerrado was “not possible.”
Between 2017 and 2023 (the latest available data), 520,200 hectares of Cerrado – a larger area of ​​Grand Canyon National Park – with soybeans, according to the numbers provided to Guardian and CCR by tracking the research group. The group said that this was much higher than it was on any other day: during the same period, there were 146,800 hectares that were wiped to grow soy in the Amazon.
Cargil and JBS They said they are making efforts to help curb the deforestation.
Edelman was appointed by Abiove in 2023 to develop a “comprehensive communications strategy” and “Playbook Message Architecture Playbook”, a copy of a contract presented with the US Department of Justice. The company has paid $ 75,000 over a period of three months to work, including “narration development” and “risk analysis and scenario planning”.
The company was also specifying the second phase, which is likely to be more profitable than its work with Abioff, which included “building an alliance” and “ongoing communications program”. This second stage can generate more than $ 50,000 per month for the agency, according to estimates listed in the contract.
A spokes of Edman said that his contract with Abioff ended in December 2023. They refused to answer questions about whether her work with Abioff involves developing messages to remove forests and if COP30 informs his previous relationship with the group. Abyov did not respond to the comment.
While the press Reports Last month, Idelman has already obtained a COP30 contract, and a summit spokesman said that the final decision was not taken yet. A spokesman for the Brazilian COP30 said in talks with many consulting companies, including Edelman. ” “The recruitment process will include an open offer to be performed through the United Nations Development Program [United Nations Development Program]”
If Edelman eventually won an attempt to work on COP30 in Brazil, this will be the second time in three years, and it has been closely participated in the efforts made to present one of the main climate summits.
Edelman was appointed by the United Arab Emirates team hosting COP28 in Dubai in 2023. He was one of the administrative managers of Edman – the former Deputy Secretary of Donald Trump during his first term – working as the head of the summit Sultan Al Jaber “media support”, according to the previous COP 28 document mentioned previously. The agency’s work with Al -Jaber, who returns alongside its role in the role of climate envoys in the United Arab Emirates, now heads Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, dating back to mid -2000s.
Edelman’s work on COP28 came after a period of intensive audit of the agency’s relationship with one of the largest oil producers in the world, Exxonmobil, and other major fossil fuel companies.
A petition was distributed in COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 by the Clean Creatives Group on Edelman to reduce its relationships with this industry. But during a video conference for employees of that year to address this problem, Richard Edelman was said to specify: The agency will not move away from fossil fuel agents. New York Times report at that time.
in Blog on the company’s website Thinking about the summit in Glasgow, Edelman praised a number of “praising” pledges, including those to end the removal of forests and reduce methane emissions. She said that the summit “will be an important teacher in the march towards progress.”
According to Clean Creatives, Edelman has ended with Exxonmobil however The group calls In recent years, it has strengthened contracts with three fossil fuel companies. One of the three of these three, the Southern Energy Company, Sasol, is no longer a customer.
Last year, the Guardian newspaper revealed that the agency recently worked at the Charles Koch Foundation, which is part of the liberal network of non -profit organizations funded by the Koch’s billionaire family, which pushed back against climate policies.
“Edelman works with a wide range of companies, associations and institutions across each of the global energy industry”, a A statement published on the agency website Countries. ))
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