The new head of the Czech environmental portfolio and leader of the anti-green and eurosceptic Motorists for Themselves party Petr Macinka declared the climate crisis to be “over” during his press conference after the populist new Czech cabinet was signed in. 

“I want to calm down the Czech public and all the ordinary citizens and tell them that, figuratively speaking, with this day the climate crisis in the Czech Republic has ended,” Macinka said in a live statement streamed by the Czech Television (CT).

“I don’t know if it will calm down the activists … but the climate crisis is over,” Macinka repeated while protesters against the Motorists' takeover of the ministry gathered outside the Ministry of Environment building and Greenpeace unveiled a poster across the front of the multistorey building saying “Let’s Defend Nature”. 

Macinka was inaugurated to both environment and foreign affairs ministries after the new Czech cabinet led by billionaire Prime Minister Andrej Babiš' populist ANO party was signed in by the country’s liberal President Petr Pavel on December 15.

The Motorists' controversy-stricken cabinet nominee Filip Turek is missing from the cabinet lineup due to illness, but Pavel previously said he would reject Turek following a scandal over Turek’s racist, sexist and homophobic online comments.   

ANO joined forces with far right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) and anti-green Motorists parties after it won the October general election to the Czech parliament, where the three parties now wield a comfortable majority of 108.

The ANO-led cabinet is poised to be the most rightwing Czech government since World War II. Liberals in the country, including NGOs and public media, fear the Babiš-led cabinet will target them after singling out NGOs in the ruling coalition documents and after the incoming cabinet members made comments about remaking financing of public media.

Regular protests are being held by students and environmentalists across the country against the handing over of the environmental portfolio to the Motorists led by Macinka, who had previously worked at the Institute of Václav Klaus, a think-tank criticised for casting doubt on climate change.