The UK has substantially decreased emissions by shunting industry elsewhere. It's changed nothing on a global scale, because not enough of us have changed our habits or expectations for a comfortable lifestyle.
Most of the 'solutions' are really about 'what can we invent/do to reduce the problem whilst keeping all the convenience of the modern lifestyle'.
A PP was correct - pissing about with electric cars and not using plastic straws isn't going to achieve much, but it's what you end up with when society has become so entrenched in a way of life that we don't want to give it up.
When the government makes some effort to regulate big business, the public moan about increased prices, point the finger at China's emissions whilst taking advantage of the cheap stuff from there.
We moan that public transport isn't good enough, but it isn't good because it isn't used enough. People don't want it. They want their cars. The bus is never going to go from your door to the door of your destination.
The fact is, we all say, 'it's not us, it's big this that or the other, but big this that or the other is driven by consumers. We want what they sell, and if any government attempts to restrict that, most of the population have a hissy fit over it, whilst in the next breath expecting the government to 'do something'.
The magic bullet that means we can carry on as we are doesn't exist. What it would take to really change the outcome is for every single one of us to revert to very simple, off-grid lifestyles. But very few of us (myself included) are truly willing to do that. We pat ourselves on the back if we don't drive (like me) or we have an electric car, or we use beeswax wrap instead of cling film. It's not anywhere near enough, but we are 'doing our bit' and it's big this, that or the other, greedy governments, etc, that is the real problem.
It isn't. Well, it is, but not in the way we want it to be. Not in the way that lets the rest of us off the hook. Because big business and greedy governments didn't drop from outer space and make us adopt this lifestyle. We ran to it, we bought it, we kept it growing and growing, we wanted, we needed, we demanded.
Environmental activists are trying to do something, yes. But they are still operating on that principle that the governments and businesses are somehow separate entities that have forced us against our will to live this way, rather than seeing the co-conspirators most of us truly are.