> However my friends who have kids and grandkids care a great deal about climate change and generally do what they can politically

As long as you got money, you can afford to "save on CO2" and buy a prius or whatnot. The thing is, we can't really avoid making things that are bad for the environment without making everything expensive. You can ban a product, like oil or fosil fuels, but you are banning the best solution - which is often also the cheapest. If it wasn't the best/cheapest, then why would you need to ban it, people would not be using it.

Climate politics eventually raises cost of living. If we could lower cost of living AND save the environment we would be already doing it.

So all the measures to save the climate will inevitable impact the lowest income households the most. Which is - and here we close the circle - the young, working population. The retired one have the wealth and assets, as established earlier.