ISTANBUL

More than 300 industrial agriculture lobbyists attended this year's UN climate talks in the Brazilian Amazon, where the industry is the leading cause of deforestation, according to a new investigation published by The Guardian on Tuesday.

“More than 300 agribusiness lobbyists occupy the space at COP30 that should belong to the forest peoples. While they talk about energy transition, they release oil into the Amazon basin and privatize rivers like the Tapajos for soy. For us, this is not development; it is violence,” Vandria Borari of the Borari Kuximawara Indigenous Association of the Alter do Chao territory in the Lower-Tapajos region of Para, Brazil, was quoted by The Guardian as saying.

This year's UN climate talks were held in Belem, also known as the Metropolis of the Brazilian Amazon region, where the agricultural industry is the leading driver of deforestation. The delegation of lobbyists was 14% larger than last year, representing industrial cattle farming, commodity grains, and pesticide interests.

This lobbying group outnumbered Canada's delegation of 220 delegates, according to a joint investigation by DeSmog and the Guardian.

One in every four of the major agriculture lobbyists at COP30 is a member of an official country delegation, with six of them having privileged access to the UN negotiations where countries are expected to negotiate ambitious policies to avert global climate catastrophe.

With agriculture accounting for a quarter to a third of global emissions, scientists state that meeting the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement will be impossible unless radical changes are made to the way the industry operates.