Cover image: Bjorn Lomborg speaking at the annual Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference. The group was founded and is led by Jordan Peterson, and funded by the same folks who funded various Brexit campaigns and GB News in the U.K. Photo courtesy of ARC Forum, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
On September 25, 2012 the late pedophile and notorious influence peddler Jeffrey Epstein—”Jerry” to his friends—had a busy day planned. He would take breakfast in the company of his lawyer, Reid Weingarten, allegedly one of the United States’ “top white-collar criminal defense lawyers”, at 8am. At 11.15am there was an appointment with an individual only listed as “Ugenia”. At midday he would meet with the executors of his estate, Lawrence Newman and Darren Indyke for 45 minutes before a 12.45pm appointment with a girl whose name was given as “Catarina”. He would join private equity investor Leon Black for steak and eggs at 1pm. Later that evening he would go for a swim about 4ish, then dine with Woody Allen at 7.30pm before he received a 10pm visit from an individual only identified as “Terje” who appears to be famed diplomat and negotiator Terje Rød-Larsen.
In the midst of all that, there was a pesky 2.30pm appointment with a Danish guy named Bjorn Lomborg.
Until that moment, Lomborg, an economist who has consistently argued that climate change is real but governments should not do anything to address the issue and should instead focus on other priorities, didn’t know Epstein. He was more of a friend of a friend. In documents released as part of the latest trove of materials published by the United States Department of Justice, he is described by Epstein’s staff in a notation for their boss as “John Brockman’s friend”.
Brockman, an influential New York literary agent, was a long-time associate of Epstein, once described by The New Republic as the pedophile’s “intellectual enabler”. The relationship was mutual. Epstein was a funder of Brockman’s foundation, Edge, and in return Brockman organized lavish “billionaire’s dinners” at which Epstein and his associates could mingle with the intelligentsia. As part of this relationship, Brockman regularly ran errands for Epstein. In one example from June 2011, he sought to make contact with Gavin Andresen, the author of a book on cryptocurrency, on Epstein’s behalf. As a foot in the door, Brockman’s email spotlighted some of the more noteworthy names on his literary agency’s list—including trader-turned-thought leader Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak—and Epstein’s billions. His email signature included a five-page list with the names of every author represented by Edge, including Bjorn Lomborg’s.
Brockman had arranged the meeting as a favor to his client who, at that time, had been crying poor. In January 2012 he told The Ecologist his thinktank, the Copenhagen Consensus Centre needed money. He claimed to have been the “victim of a vendetta” after his funding was cut by the Danish government. As a philanthropist, Brockman suggested, Epstein might be able to help Lomborg out.
If Lomborg was coming cap-in-hand, email records suggest Epstein was not interested, treating the encounter as an annoying obligation and an interruption to his other business. In the lead up to the meeting, he leapt at a more tantalizing offer—or at least one that he presumably thought might be more useful to him: a meeting request from Mom Luang Rajadarasri Jayankura.
Jayankura was the Thai honorary consul to Kosovo and oversaw foundations engaged in charity work in Thailand. In Thai royal culture, the designation “Mom Luang” translates roughly to “The Honourable” and is given to the last royal descendents who retain a title. According to Jayankura’s defunct X account, she was “born to the Royal Chakri Dynasty of Thailand” and is the “Great Great Granddaughter of His Majesty King Rama IV of Thailand”. Epstein appears to have first heard about Jayankura in 2010 from an associate who, other records show, directly discussed sex trafficking with him by email. This associate informed Epstein at that time that Jayankura helped him open a Thai bank account. Two years later, Jayankura, who ran a foundation to promote Buddhism, wanted to visit Epstein at his home in New York, and Epstein was aware her foundation didn’t “seem to have anything going on” at the moment and gave her direct access to children. Communicating through Epstein’s personal assistant, he initially offered the Thai Princess a 2.45pm slot—one that would cut Lomborg off at 15 minutes. Jayankura, however, replied with a counteroffer for 1pm.
“Is it possible to have it earlier say 1pm at his home as I have another meeting at st Regis at 3 pm with the most amazing ladies in New York,” she wrote. “I hope we can meet and perhaps later Jeffrey can meet these lovely ladies too.”
In the end they settled on 2pm. Epstein’s personal assistant instructed staff at his New York manor to “make sure the door is answered promptly…” in a message written in bold with the subject line “2pm Important Appt!”
A spokesperson from the Copenhagen Consensus Center confirmed there had been a “single meeting in New York, arranged by Lomborg’s literary agent” between Epstein and the Danish economist. It would prove a fruitless encounter with the Copenhagen Consensus Center receiving neither money or help from Epstein.
“Epstein was known at the time for funding various philanthropic projects,” the spokesperson said. “Lomborg was not aware of Epstein's prior conviction at the time. The conversation was about which philanthropic investments deliver the most social good per dollar spent. There was no further contact after this meeting.”
The pair may not have hit it off, but Lomborg—who has argued that poor people need coal—would find other allies eventually. In one funding drive, the Australian government, under the leadership of conservative prime minister Tony Abbott, offered Lomborg AUD$4m in taxpayer funds to start a local arm of his thinktank at the University of Western Australia (UWA) business school in 2015. A revolt by UWA academics, however, forced the government to look for an alternative home for the centre, leading it to consider Flinders University. When that failed due to a second revolt by staff, the government rescinded its offer in October 2015. Lomborg, however, would eventually land on his feet. According to tax records reviewed by DeSmog, another Epstein associate, Bill Gates, donated USD$3.5m to Lomborg’s thinktank between 2017 and 2022. Later in 2025, weeks before COP30 in Belém, Brazil, Gates argued that climate change was not an existential threat to humanity in a memo titled “Three Tough Truths About Climate”.
Epstein’s lack of interest in Lomborg and his ideas is perhaps not surprising. Climate change was never a significant subject of interest to the late pedophile and philanthropist, except where it might gain him access or advantage. Where he did discuss climate change, it appears he was a denier.
“I think you might consider the sources you guys rely on for info , are the same that write the bad articles about each of us,” Epstein wrote in an email apparently sent to Soon Yi Previn, Woody Allen’s wife, on 11 May 2012 following a dinner with the couple. “Your knowledge of the falsity of articles about each of us, is really no different than the ones on climate change etc.”
In July 2016, Epstein discussed climate change in an email exchange with German cognitive scientist, AI researcher and philosopher Joscha Bach. Bach, who offended Noam Chomsky by contradicting his work on language, wrote to Epstein to better explain his argument. During the back-and-forth, Bach compared individual people to cells in the human body and described fascism as “the most efficient and rationally stringent way of governance, if somebody could pull it off in an sustainable and efficient way” – though he added he did not personally support fascism. At one point, Bach appears to quote a line written in Epstein’s uncanny, lazily spelled script as saying: “, maybe climate change is a good way of dealing with overpopulation. . the earths forest fire. potentially a good thing for the species”. In response, Bach agreed: “I suspect that strong reductions in population will come from large-scale failure of agriculture. The climate change itself with result in migration and wars, but most people will probably survive that. But who knows, I might be wrong.”
Bach, who received funding from Epstein, later addressed the relationship in a long Substack post where he described Epstein as “high strung, intensely curious, and utterly devoid of fear, guilt or shame.”
“Epstein was not a scientist himself, and regarded the consensus mechanism of peer-reviewed science with skepticism,” he said. “Instead, he generated his own models of the world, and bounced them against the best minds he could find.”
It should be no surprise then that Epstein—an aggressive predator who treated relationships as transactional—sought to cut Lomborg short to prioritize befriending a Thai princess who offered him personal advantage.
The episode offers a glimpse into the dynamics of the elite and rarefied world Jeffrey Epstein inhabited and the means—the name dropping, the favor-swapping, the projection of wealth and sophistication, the opportunism, the transactional approach to relationships and the incentives to look the other way—by which he ruthlessly pursued what he wanted. Lomborg, ironically, appears to have narrowly avoided becoming entangled in this particular web, thanks in part to Epstein treating him like the Danish economist continues to encourage governments to treat climate change: as an annoyance and not a real priority.
Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly noted the date of Epstein’s meeting with Lomborg as 2025. It occurred in 2012. We regret the error.
