I think that your suggestion, while I guess it's mainstream and basically what's already being done in most places, is guaranteed to fail in both respects.

If we tax one thing and subsidize another, without any linkage to CO2 emissions, then we will not get the reductions we need.

We cannot reconcile the idea that CO2 is the problem, while maintaining that some CO2 is more equal than others.

Can you explain further why you do not like the idea of pursuing the goal that matters, and prefer substituting one that doesn't?

Do you personally, at work, observe how metrics and KPIs that aren't chosen well, lead to bad behavior?

Putting an excise tax on new fossil fueled cars would discourage manufacture and sales. Using the revenue to help working class people retire and replace their older fossil fueled vehicles with zero emissions ones reduces the number currently in service. The key word with that is 'help' as in help that do what's needed. Instead of carbon taxes which punish working class people for not doing something unspecified to fix the problem.

That said I also support banning production of fossil fuel powered cars with enough forewarning that industry and the economy can adjust.

I don't think you're wrong, but an opinion like you're expressing doesn't say what, who, how it should be done. It doesn't set a goal that can be achieved, and it doesn't imply that success would solve the problem of reducing global CO2 levels.

Have you ever had a project manager tell you how to write code?

>carbon taxes which punish working class people

That's why the revenue needs to be sent right back to the people in equal amounts.

If that isn't good enough, it doesn't mean carbon taxes are less necessary. You haven't stated why it won't work or is not necessary in a way that I can understand yet.

Doing other things seems to me like the ultimate example of "looking for your keys under the streetlight even though you dropped them in the dark".

Or, it's like the joke "we must do something; this is something, therefore we must do it".

Building things produces CO2. People will argue endlessly about how much. It's impossible for everyone to agree on the facts, but the quantity matters.

We don't want any particular activity or product to be generated, we want less CO2. If we reward specific things that are associated currently with less CO2 but don't logically entail it, it will be a very short time until people optimize those goals by producing more CO2.