‘The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history’s judgement on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it.’

In such dramatic terms newspapers across the world yesterday heralded the first day of a two-week climate change summit that many are calling the most important meeting in history.

The significance of Copenhagen is two-fold. Firstly, there is genuine hope of a deal being struck which, although short of detail, at least gets the world to agree to a big picture. That may be some way short of the legally binding treaty many had hoped for, but at least it is a step in the right direction.

The second impact of the summit must be to get communities around the world questioning what their role is in this process. What is their government doing to help?

The answer, in the case of this Bailiwick, is less than reassuring.

It is now 18 months since the States got nervous about the implications of its own proposed energy policy and decided to water it down by ‘noting’ its contents rather than ‘endorsing’ them.

The difference may, to some, be one of semantics; to others it is symptomatic of this Assembly’s inability to grasp difficult issues.

More worryingly, if one small island – with much to lose if sea levels rise at predicted rates – cannot set its shoulder firmly to the wheel and push climate change back with clear policies what hope is there for a summit meeting of 192 countries?

Concrete evidence of progress since that lukewarm response to the energy policy in June 2008 is hard to find. Indeed, the worsening economic climate since then may make many deputies even more nervous about spending money the island does not have on measures to shrink the island’s carbon footprint.

Waiting for the economy to recover is, however, out of the question.

If there is one message that needs to come out of Denmark loud and clear over the next fortnight it is that dithering will cost us all.