This at least
points to an answer, one of maybe three answers I've seen with actual credibility.
(The others are "pray that a geoengineering plan works without disaster" and "try to mitigate a whole bunch of warming while emissions gradually stabilize". Not exactly inspiring.)
Visions of fixing global warming with high gasoline prices and renewable electricity subsidies are ludicrous. Focus on reducing personal emissions is almost always a distraction (perhaps excluding air travel and diet). As soon as you dive into numbers, it becomes obvious that even the most optimistic gains from those things can't come close to solving the problem. There's just too much CO2 output from production (concrete, plastics, farming, etc.), non-car engines (cargo ships, planes, heavy machinery, etc.), and hard-to-replace, high-emissions power (e.g. coal in outlying China). And power improvements are often less good than they appear; it's common to report fossil fuel reductions without accounting for any offsetting harms like sulfur hexafluoride leaks from wind turbines, or CO2 emissions from solar panel manufacture and disposal.
That doesn't mean things are hopeless, or oil is blameless, or America should ignore the problem because China, or any of the other cop-outs. But I think you're exactly right: existing producers aren't going to roll over and quit, and meaningful state action will require promoting deep, pervasive changes, not just subsidizing rooftop solar.
We need lobbying and outreach and communication and legislation; we also need a million practical things to be made better, or used better, or supplanted. All I can see to do is pick a problem that suits me and dive in.