ClimateVoices Featuring Thomas O'Neill

In this issue, I’m pleased to be talking with Thomas O'Neill who founded Danu Insight to use AI to scale climate data to help institutional investors address systemic risks. 

Thomas previously worked at the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a global non-profit that runs the world’s only independent environmental disclosure system. He went on to co-found InfluenceMap to create investor-focused metrics out of political lobbying data for the first time. This interview is extra timely given ClimateVoice recently released an update to the Climate Policy Obstruction Scorecard. 

Thomas lives in Berlin and has a degree in Politics and an MSc in International Security and Global Governance. He has trained with the army, worked with the police, and been active in politics. He is on the Forbes Under 30 list for Europe Law and Policy.

Danu Insight just published a report called Silent Influence* that analyzed 8,500 publicly listed global companies. Your research found that 78 percent of those corporations provided zero public disclosure about their climate lobbying. Why should all of us be worried about this secrecy?

*Silent Influence

Secrecy implies intentionality, which is hard to assess with companies that disclose nothing about their climate-related lobbying activities. In some cases, these companies may not have even considered the issue. They see themselves as industry specialists, not political actors. However, that argument almost always collapses under scrutiny, especially when one examines the actions of a company’s government affairs teams or, perhaps more importantly, their membership in trade associations.

These associations, which once existed primarily to align industry standards, have evolved into primarily political influencing machines. If companies are saying nothing about their trade associations, it is very likely they have never been forced to take the issue seriously, or are unaware of how their trade associations engage with climate policy. Most big companies, more than three-quarter, are linked to trade associations that lobby against climate regulation. In this context, ignorance becomes a form of complicity.

Perhaps I could reframe the question about the research in Silent Influence more critically:  the report identified a significant transparency and governance gap across thousands of the world’s largest listed companies. But if most of the lobbying power lies with a few hundred that dominate global production, why should we concern ourselves with a much bigger universe of companies?

I believe there are a few material reasons.

Firstly, a lot of climate policy is local. Only a few giants, such as ExxonMobil , can single-handedly influence U.S. federal legislation. But in places like Vermont, for example, where the Global Warming Solutions Act was passed in 2020, relatively small businesses helped shape the outcome.

Secondly, it’s important to understand how trade associations work. Yes, they are often dominated by their largest, highest-paying members. But many are also consensus-driven or have internal democratic mechanisms for setting policy lobbying positions. Smaller companies can have influence, sometimes through sheer force of personality. I once watched a debate in the European Parliament between the charismatic founder of Ecocem and a representative from Heidelberg. Ecocem argued forcefully the cement sector was choosing not to decarbonize-particularly around clinker production. His presence and argument outweighed the man representing a company 150 times larger. If more people like that engaged seriously within trade associations, it could significantly shift their climate positions.

Thirdly, our research showed that 85% of companies had not disclosed any form of climate lobbying governance. This matters because when companies do treat lobbying as a governance issue, three things tend to happen:

• They tend to start aligning their lobbying with their stated climate values and ESG teams;
• They begin reevaluating, pressuring or leaving obstructive trade associations;
• And we have seen cases where these reviews have led to major reversals in association policy, followed almost by shifts in countries' national climate change policy.

If you can change BusinessEurope , the U.S. Chamber of Commerce , the Business Council of Australia (BCA) , and Keidanren in Japan, it can shift the entire policy landscape.

To achieve this, we need more company advocates on the inside, actively shaping the lobbying landscape rather than passively endorsing it.

This report addresses the thorny issue of trade association lobbying against the climate goals of their corporate members. What actions do you recommend companies take when faced with this dilemma?

I caution against being too dogmatic; and respond to the types of associations we encounter.

Take the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA). Its purpose, to a large degree, is to prevent GHG emissions regulation. You cannot reform that from the inside when the organization functions largely as a projection of ExxonMobil and Chevron 's political power. It is beyond redemption on this issue. That is why bp ultimately left in 2020, and why Shell ’s continued membership is hard to justify.

The situation becomes more complex with entities like the API - American Petroleum Institute . These groups are not just lobbyists; they are industry linchpins, coordinating across the sector. Climate-aware companies might want to leave on principle or to send a political signal, but practically speaking, these wealthy oil and gas trade associations are pretty hard to defund. Still, morally, there is a case to be made for walking away. Failing that, companies must exert maximum internal pressure and be held accountable for their continued membership.

With large cross-sectoral trade associations, the case for staying a member is stronger. These associations can, with some legitimacy, present themselves as the voice of business. In the case of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce , they operate from a giant building 320 meters away from the White House. Such entities are too politically influential to leave in the hands of companies with lower climate or ethical standards. But even here, the threat to leave should not be taken off the table.

You describe corporate lobbying as “a hidden force that shapes and regularly undermines climate policy.” How can investors and employees push companies to improve transparency and corporate governance?

If you are an employee and you want to understand the ethics of your company, you could read the CSR or ESG report. However, to gain insight into the company's heart, examine its policy lobbying. These lobbying positions, rarely intended for public view, reveal the future the company is trying to shape. That is where you see its real priorities.

If you find your company has no climate lobbying policy, you should ask why. If it has made no effort to align its trade association memberships, chances are it is already indirectly shaping dozens of social and environmental policies in any direction. In my view, aligning a company's stated values with its political influence is one of the most effective and systemically important actions employees can advocate for.

On the investor side, many institutional leaders already take climate lobbying seriously through their stewardship teams, and numerous initiatives exist to support this growing movement. But a major gap remains: the near-total absence of lobbying data in ESG and climate funds. That is increasingly hard for climate-conscious investors to justify. Holding companies that obstruct climate policy poses both regulatory and reputational risks for fund managers, and an opportunity to do better. If capital markets begin to treat lobbying alignment as financially material, it creates a real cost for companies that obstruct climate policy.

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