At the end of the day that's the main problem and reason why so many countries have not done anything about carbon emissions, because they do fear the wrath of the people. The problem was always delayed and not really worked upon; now we are seeing more and more the consequences of it more drastically and more intense than science ever thought upon. And since the adults have been doing "business as usual" there is now an angry child generration with Greta Thunberg as figurehead around blaming us for what we've done and are still doing to the planet they are still doomed to live upon when we are already gone since decades.
So the question is what is more important in the long run: meeting the demands of the current people or ensuring that the future generations has a still somewhat endurable although less cozy planet to live on then we have? This is what is on the table right now, and remains unresolved.
All of your stuff about settling structures and so on - yes, it is like that. But most countries have ignored the problem since the 90s, so no wonder that in America amongst many other countries not much progress has been made.
If you really want to get the ball rolling, there are two possibilities:
* less power consumption and
* usage more efficient machines/engines.
Since America is the "bigger is always better" country this will only happen when energy prices are high enough to make people think about it: do I really want a SUV with normal fuel usage, or a much higher efficient engine? Do I really need to drive to the supermarket three times a week, or would one time buying more be enough? And that's the part that you have been neglecting, there are always push and pull factors on the market. If energy becomes more expensive, suddenly smaller cars become more viable to the customer.
And this can be only be done by taxation; energy is still way too cheap, end of story. Otherwise people will never will start moving their lazy asses around and get going, and all will continue just like that until it really is way too late. Otherwise settling structures will not change. We also know that oil is going to become expensive in this century anyway sooner or later, and latest then this is going to happen without any governmental intervention by itself. And mankind already in the past switched over its main primary energy source from one thing to another: first was wood, then in the 19th century due to steam engines/trains/steel plants coal, mid of the 20th century it became oil and maybe in this century sometime finally renewable energy sources, which would make sense.
Aside that the planet and climate does not care about the social status of families - it only cares about CO2 emissions. And to mitigate some effects for the poorer would be the duty of the country, which I doubt is going ever to happen in America where it is no problem to spend 100 billion dollar more for the military, but not 10 billion dollar more on energy efficiency.
Either way, and this might be unpopular but is the way it is: if we really want to get the stuff rolling our lifestyle has too change drastically, but change does not necessarily mean by the way less comfortable than before.
In Switzerland the ETH Zürich has developed a model of the so called
2000 Watt society. The idea is that in order to reach a sustainable level of living we need to go back from the current energy consumption per day to somewhere in the 1960s; the average in Europe is 6000 Watt per day, and America 12.000 Watt per day. While some have doubts about that model, many towns are trying to achieve that goal in Switzerland, like Zürich itself. They have been working on it over a decade now, and seem to make good progress so far.