Its not a hypothetical scenario. Its literally reality as we speak. And its not the case as your hypothesis would have it that countries in northern Europe are in any non insignificant way are less affected than other parts of the world.
The world economic situation is not going to be resolved by people drinking fewer expensive coffees, eating fewer avocado toasts or biking more to work, or other bike shed related activities. The effects are negligible in the overall picture.
how is it negligible that you can't go to work without a car?
if said car breaks down you have to pay (and spend time) to repair it. many people live paycheck to paycheck, no savings. payday loans and credit card loans are a problem in the US and it's not exactly a coincidence.
of course people in said European cities who can't afford a car also usually don't frequent Starbucks and don't buy avocado (unless maybe if it's on sale), that doesn't mean transportation as a factor is negligible.
> The world economic situation ...
is a completely structural problem. the world needs to spend less of its economic surplus on unsustainable stuff, and this includes everything with externalities (from things like watering the desert in California on an industrial scale to housing/heating/cooling/moving people and freight around using costly ways) and allocating more to building infrastructure for energy generation (and transmission and storage), healthcare and education.
of course strictly speak we don't need to. feudalism was fine, most people got used to it.
The world economic situation is not going to be resolved by people drinking fewer expensive coffees, eating fewer avocado toasts or biking more to work, or other bike shed related activities. The effects are negligible in the overall picture.