By exporting CO2 "polluters" elsewhere to a large extent.
Not really. Just check the amount of gasoline burned per year in Europe compared to USA (per capita ratio of about 10:1). And the amount of energy used by houses (per capita ratio of 2:1)
If people travel less by car, and have smaller or more energy-efficient homes, that's in part a consequence of policies.
People in the USA drive more, and in larger cars, resulting in much more fuel consumption for personal use. I'm not talking about industry use here. Both Europe and USA outsourced consumer goods manufacturing to China anyway.
even EU-level measures applied worldwide are insufficient to do much.
On the contrary, a world-wide $100/ton tax on carbon would do a lot. It could replace part of income or sales tax in each country.
If I may use an analogy, we're meters away from a nuclear bomb which has already exploded, the fission has ended, the fission pieces, the gammas and the neutrons are leaving the nucleus. In 5 or 10 microseconds we'll be clobbered. But we live short lives, and on the microsecond scale we have a lot of time. But our societies, who live on the explosion scale are fucked.
This is another common, but false myth. Just because we can't avoid +1.5C change doesn't mean it's too late for +2 or +3C, which would be a lot better than +4 or +5C.
"We are fucked so we may as well emit as much CO2 as possible and let people pollute for free" is dumb. Our kids and grandkids will still be there to live on this planet.