This story was co-published with Intercept Brasil.

Public relations giant Edelman lobbied the Brazilian hosts of the COP30 climate summit to choose one of its oil and gas clients to help power the conference, even as it was gearing up to serve as an adviser at the talks aimed at curbing the use of fossil fuels, documents show.

The New York-based firm worked to set up meetings with the COP30 team about “participation opportunities” for Brazilian fuel distributor Vibra Energia over a period of at least 12 months before the talks, according to notes and emails retrieved via freedom of information requests filed by Unearthed and shared with DeSmog.

During this time, Edelman also successfully lobbied the Brazilian hosts to award it the contract to provide public relations support for COP30, and began preparatory work on the project, according to the documents.

The findings have sparked fresh concerns over possible conflicts of interest at Edelman, the world’s largest PR company by revenue, between its role in supporting climate diplomacy and its lobbying on behalf of fossil fuel clients.

“These emails show that Edelman’s real purpose at COP30 is to promote fossil fuels, not climate action,” said Duncan Meisel, head of campaign group Clean Creatives. “This is an agency that is far behind the times on the energy transition and seems willing to pull the global climate agenda backwards to suit them.”

Environmental organisations, climate scientists, and Indigenous groups had already been urging Brazil to drop Edelman from its role handling media relations at COP30, taking place in the Amazonian city of Belém, due to the firm’s decades-long history of representing major greenhouse gas polluters such as Shell, Chevron, and ExxonMobil.

Negotiators at the annual conference — scheduled to conclude on Friday — are attempting to agree on steps to slow climate breakdown, which is primarily driven by burning fossil fuels. More than 80 countries are pushing for an agreement to begin work on a roadmap to transition the world away from oil, gas, and coal as a key outcome of the summit, but they are facing opposition from major fossil fuel-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia.

Based in Rio de Janeiro, and a former subsidiary of Brazil’s national oil and gas company Petrobras, Vibra Energia is Brazil’s largest oil and gas distributor. Its network of 8,000 gas stations and fuel processing operations generated net revenues of $1.2 billion in 2024.

‘Communication Services‘

Edelman’s $835,000 contract with the COP30 team began on July 14, according to a standard disclosure document filed with the United States Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, and first reported by Climate Home News.

However, Edelman had informed the Brazilian finance ministry four months earlier — in a meeting on March 12 — that it had already been hired to support the government on COP30.

Edelman “reported that they had been hired to provide communication services to the COP30 Presidency and sought input from the Ministry of Finance,” according to a summary of the meeting shared by the ministry in response to a freedom of information request.

This suggests Edelman had been working on COP30 in some capacity for at least a month when its Brasilia-based oil and gas specialist, Janaína Arteaga, attended a meeting on April 16 between Vibra Energia and officials from Brazil’s Special Secretariat for COP30 (SECOP) — created to help stage the two-week negotiations — as recorded in emails and public ministry records.

When asked about the contents of the March 12 meeting with the Brazilian finance ministry, Edelman said the meeting “was not requested to discuss COP30 but to learn about the Ecological Transformation Plan, as indicated in the meeting request.”

In response to detailed questions about its lobbying on behalf of Vibra Energia, Edelman said only that its contract with the company ended in May 2025 and its contract with COP30 started in July 2025.

Former Edelman employees said it is common practice for agencies to begin working on prestigious, time-sensitive projects before all the paperwork is finalised.

“I’ve often worked on projects before scopes [of work] have been formally signed,” said one former Edelman executive, who declined to be named for fear of professional repercussions. “That’s due to the quick-paced nature of our projects and with, what I assume to be, verbal confirmation and existing client relationships securing the project despite the delay in pen hitting the paper.”

When New York-based public relations agency Teneo supported COP29, held in Azerbaijan last year, the contract included backdated payments for work done several months before the agreement was officially signed, according to records the company filed with the U.S. government.

Members of Edelman’s COP30 team have experience working on reputation management projects for oil companies including Shell, Chevron, and Brazil’s national oil and gas company Petrobras, according to an analysis of official Edelman filings with the U.S. government, as well as Edelman employee profiles on both LinkedIn and the firm’s website. One team member worked on a lobbying campaign for a soy trade group trying to quash laws protecting the Amazon from deforestation.

Vibra Energia — whose contract with Edelman ended in May — said it “has no commercial relationship with Edelman and participated in meetings with SECOP, as did other industry players present at COP30.”

A spokesperson for the COP30 Presidency said: “The contract with Edelman began in July 2025 and therefore does not overlap with the meeting solicitations mentioned. Edelman was selected through a rigorous and transparent international bidding process in full compliance with U.N. procurement rules, based solely on the strength of its technical and financial proposal.”

The United Nations Development Programme, which handled the selection process, said that its “procurement processes were strictly followed and no assurances were given to applicants during the process.”

Months of Lobbying

Edelman’s Arteaga first contacted SECOP on behalf of Vibra Energia in April 2024, writing that “Vibra is interested in participating in the discussions and realization of COP30” and “would like to understand the best way to do so,” according to the emails.

Arteaga, who works for Edelman’s Brazilian branch, managed to arrange two meetings between Vibra Energia and SECOP in the subsequent year, according to emails and meeting notes.

Meanwhile, Edelman pressed ahead with its campaign to win the contract to help stage COP30, touting its previous experience as an adviser to COP28, held in Dubai in 2023.

Edelman executives twice met with SECOP in July 2024 “to present [Edelman’s] expertise in major international events, such as COP,” with attendees including three of Arteaga’s colleagues at Edelman Brazil, emails and government transparency records show.

By the time Arteaga helped Vibra Energia set up a second meeting with SECOP in April 2025, Edelman had already told the Brazilian finance ministry a month earlier — on March 12 — that it had been hired to provide communications services to COP30.

In an agenda for the April 2025 meeting between Vibra Energia and SECOP, published by the Brazilian government under transparency laws, Arteaga is described as: “Consultant specializing in O&G [oil and gas] — Edelman, representing Vibra Energia.”

Seven Vibra Energia executives subsequently met with the COP30 team on July 22 to discuss “fuel at COP30,” this time without Arteaga, according to meeting agendas published by the Brazilian government. Attempts to contact Arteaga via LinkedIn were routed to Edelman’s press office.

Although Edelman said its contract with Vibra Energia ended in May, public records show that Arteaga also attended a meeting unrelated to COP30 with Vibra Energia and Brazil’s oil, gas, and biofuels agency on June 2. Edelman did not respond to questions about this meeting.

Vibra Energia in Belém

The impact of Edelman’s efforts to win Vibra Energia a share of the work supplying fuel to the COP30 venue — where diesel generators have been powering the air conditioning units blasting cold air in a constant battle with the sweltering Amazonian heat — was unclear.

The spokesperson for the COP30 Presidency said Petrobras is the sole official fuel supplier at COP30, and that the Presidency does not have any contractual relationship with Vibra Energia.

However, workers at Vibra Energia’s depot in Belém — located about three miles from the COP30 conference centre — and staff operating the venue’s diesel generators said that Vibra Energia was transporting and handling fuel for the event on behalf of Petrobras.

Petrobras said it is “cooperating by providing diesel with renewable content for COP30,” but did not respond to questions about whether it had any contractual relationship with Vibra Energia for COP30.

Vibra Energia has dozens of live contracts with Petrobras, including a long-term contract to handle the “S10” diesel Petrobras says it is providing for the event, according to information published under Brazil’s transparency laws for state-owned companies.

The Brazilian government invited an executive from Vibra Energia’s renewables division Comerc Energia to the conference as a guest, according to the U.N.’s official COP30 delegates list. COP30 Executive Director Ana Toni is a former advisor to Vibra Energia.

Vibra Energia, meanwhile, has invested in making itself visible at COP30. The company is sponsoring an event space near the Belém docks called Casa Brasil, where it is promoting its campaign to prevent sexual violence.

Vibra Energia has also sponsored individual events in other spaces on topics such as “low-carbon solutions” alongside fossil majors such as ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and Equinor. The company sells a line of petrol it describes as the world’s “first carbon neutral gasoline,” claiming that the emissions created by burning the fuel are offset by the company’s investments in forest preservation programmes.

Two Vibra Energia executives are part of the COP30 delegation from the Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development, a lobby group whose members include major fossil fuel and agribusiness companies, according to the delegates list.

‘Profit and Access‘

Addressing world leaders gathered at a pre-COP30 plenary in Belém on November 6, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned that “corporations are making record profits from climate devastation — with billions spent on lobbying, deceiving the public and obstructing progress.”

The remarks echoed comments Guterres made in June 2024, when he said advertising and PR agencies should drop their fossil fuel clients, and characterised ad executives working on oil and gas briefs as “Mad Men fuelling the madness.”

Dozens of influencers, scientists, and researchers signed an open letter last week demanding the Brazilian hosts drop Edelman, saying the firm delays climate action by greenwashing polluting clients while also lobbying against strong climate policies.

That followed a call in October by over 200 climate and environmental groups demanding the Brazilian government remove fossil fuel influence from COP30, including by banning oil and gas lobbyists and ending its partnership with Edelman.

A report by campaign group Kick Big Polluters Out found that if the fossil fuel lobbyists at COP30 were a country delegation, it would be the second biggest behind hosts Brazil.

Edelman’s website says the company believes “climate change is the biggest crisis we face as a society,” and that it “partners with diverse clients committed to helping drive the transition to a net-zero future, helping them act and communicate in more meaningful ways.”

The firm has also created an “Independent Council of Climate Experts” that includes Marina Grossi, COP30’s Special Envoy for Business.

“In my experience, Edelman’s leadership looks at work with heavily polluting clients — especially oil and gas — mostly through the lens of profit and access,” said a former Edelman employee who has worked on oil and gas projects for the firm, and who declined to be named for fear of professional repercussions. “The attitude is basically: Stay in the room and keep a seat at the table, even if the table is hell-bent on destroying humanity.”

This story is being co-published with Intercept Brasil.