The question of who owns a product's externalities is not absurd at all, but pretty complicated, and unfortunately rarely responsibly accounted for.
Whyy are not the externalities owned by the owner of the product?
I can think of only 2 reasons:
- the consumer was forced to purchase the product without an option with dire consequences. In this case, the dominator is responsible. This is pretty much anything your taxes buy.
- the producer lied or hid something about the product. In this case, the liar is responsible. E.g., the lies about recycling plastic, the outcome of using internal combustion engines, the safety of leaded gasoline. The list of that is simply enormous.
What other complications do you see?
You can give up your trips to Bali and use the money to live closer to work, for example.
You can use a bicycle instead of a car for short trips.
You can decide not to eat food that it's been shipped halfway around the world unless that is the most responsible option available to you.
You can use the disposable grocery bags and not those environmentally damaging reusable ones.
And do on...
Fixing the problem of climate change requires deep economic restructuring, and much of the responsibility there lies with those who have the most power to enact these changes (i.e. politicians, ceos, large shareholders). Treating climate change as an issue of individual consumer responsibility has been a long term tactic of large polluters (e.g. oil firms) to shift attention and blame from their damaging activities.