The meeting on Monday of the Cabinet committee on economic affairs has been reported as likely to see the final showdown between the Treasury and the Business Department and Chris Huhne's Department of Energy and Climate Change. The Director of 'Friends of the Earth', Andy Atkins, has already made headlines by demanding that Chris Huhne resign if the CCC's recommendations are rejected.

Phil Thornhill of the Campaign against Climate Change said "The millions of the world's poorest who will suffer most from the devastating impacts of a catastrophic destabilisation of the world's climate will not have a voice in the decision that will be taken on Monday. But you can be sure that influential business interests will. Once short term economic interests are allowed to take priority over the far greater threat from irreversible and catastrophic climate change, then any serious attempt to deal with the climate crisis will inevitably unravel. If this government backtracks on climate now then the face that it will lose before today's concerned public, in terms of failing to live up to its word on green commitments, will be as nothing compared to the infamous reputation it will have in history, to the generations that come after."