The U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, opened Sunday, billed as a “last, best hope” for putting a dint in the climate change that is happening around the globe.

For the next two weeks, representatives from 200 countries around the world will try to hammer out agreements and goals for reducing the amount of greenhouse gases the world is producing. Countries will be laying out their plans for reducing the burning of coal, gas and oil, and dealing with the impact of climate change.

Unfortunately, some of the major producers of greenhouse gases are not planning to fully participate. Russia and China left the G20 summit in Rome on Sunday without signing on to a plan to zero out their carbon emissions by 2050, as the U.S. and other countries have. China is very dependent on coal to run its economy, and Russia is trying to make Europe dependent on its natural gas pipeline.

Individuals are much the same. We all would like to see the climate changes brought under control, but until a vast majority of people really change the way they live, the cars they drive, the foods they eat, and so on, not much is going to change.

We hope the climate summit in Glasgow is able to come up with a decent plan for corralling the climate change, but we suspect we will be heading for another “last, best hope” in a few years.