Living like monks is not realistic
As clean energy and green products are too expensive, can we just live like monks to prevent global warming?
Saving energy and buying the strict minimum can certainly contribute to reducing carbon emissions. In that sense, the government could establish consumption quotas for each household, while spending would be redirected to build a new clean energy infrastructure.
Actually, such a strategy of strict rules and quotas is equivalent to high taxes and stiff regulations, with net incomes trimmed down to the bare minimum, and with plenty of subsidies to build renewable power plants or add solar panels on house roofs.
It goes back to the problematic of regulations and taxes on the rich upper half of the country, while leaving the bottom half of the country with their low incomes and a little more: history has shown that it requires a heavy-handed government to police the uncooperative people and to mute political opponents who threaten to scrap all regulations. In other words, this system of harsh regulation and taxation could be classified at best as socialist, worse as communist or totalitarian.