You suggested that personal choice was just a distraction from policy-making, but one of your own examples, cigarettes, shows otherwise.

Personal choice works.

There was a national campaign against tobacco. Moreover, no one is accidentally buying cigarettes like they’re buying carbon. It’s not like cigarettes were added to every product in unknown quantities and the public managed to avoid purchasing them. Similarly, people can’t simply opt out of carbon—it’s not like people were previously waltzing up to the counter and asking for some carbon, and now they’re not doing it any more. If that’s your “personal responsibility” example, it’s pretty desperate.