. . . . Humans on mass will not change their current behaviors until forced to.
That is not correct. Humans will change their behaviors when the see an opportunity to make their lives better. They are resistant to making their lives worse, especially if the supposed "benefit" to them is delayed/predicted or if it is only to someone else.
Yes, people make excuses to not change when they don't want to make the change that others propose. But, those making the proposed changes also make excuses that sometimes turn out to be false promises - destroying their own credibility.
The problem the proponents of behavior changes to avoid climate change are having is two-fold. First, it will cost the average person money they don't have and "convenience" they are not sure they can do without. Some of that is going to happen whether the majority of the pubic really understands it or not, such as increased costs of electric systems to provide the green generation, green energy storage, and transmission needed to get it to the users.
But, things like electric automobiles are not selling to "the masses", and for valid reasons. I have suggested before that we need to be smarter about how we manage the transitions.
For example, a hybrid car that gets about 100 miles on battery alone, but has on-board charging capability with a gasoline or diesel powered generator, would satisfy a lot more people than the currently available options. It would be a way to get a lot of the current driving done on electric power, without making most people need 2 cars, one electric and one to do the things that electric doesn't do well or at all. If those cars made up the bulk of out private vehicles, most of our driving would get done with electric power. And, as batteries increase in capacity and longevity, that will quickly lead to decreased fuel use in cars that are already manufactured, simply by changing the batteries, saving CO2 emissions of manufacturing totally new vehicles.
We need to stop trying to insist on what activists call "perfect" and get to what consumers call good enough.
But, while we are at it, we also need to recognize that sea level is going to rise, and that is going to inundate a lot of our coastal infrastructure. We cannot "stop sea level rise". Even if humans did not exist, sea level would probably rise about 25 feet higher than it is now, just as it did 120,000 years ago in the last warm period, before it dropped 325 feet at the peak of the last ice age. Yes, humans are probably affecting that cycle to some degree, and the sea level may rise farther and faster than if we never had any industry. But, at this point, we are not even in a condition where we can even slow down whatever speedup we have created for several decades. So, trying to tell people that we need stop driving gasoline cars now to save the Marshall Islands, for instance, can be shown to be a scam argument. We need activists to speak only the truth if they are going to gain the credibility they need to get people to decide to make changes.