I'd like to see most forms of pollution handled this way--take the vast majority of pollution laws and throw them in the dumpster. Instead, make a list of pollutants and set a tax per ton (or other suitable unit) for emitting them. This tax is assessed at the point of creation (mining is considered a form of creation) and is rebated upon verified destruction (in many cases you'll "destroy" A to make B--you pay the tax on B but get back the tax on A) or long term sequestration. (Thus you can do things like grow trees and chuck the wood in an old salt mine and recoup the carbon tax even though you never emitted carbon.)
There ceases to be any issue of what is feasible and no issue of company A emitting a lot more than B because what B does is easier to control emissions. You don't get situations like what happened to my former employer--kept being hounded by the EPA because their record on reducing emissions had been so good and then they stopped. Duh, they stopped because they had done everything viable at that point--effectively we had the EPA on our case for doing too good a job!
That are two problems with that as opposed to just returning the carbon tax money to the general population with each person getting an equal share.
First, which other taxes would you reduce? In the US I'm almost certain that the list of taxes that Democrats would want to reduce would be different from the list of taxes that Republican would want to reduce.
Second, even if we can get agreement on which tax to reduce, the benefits to the individual taxpayers aren't likely to be proportional to, or even correlate well with, with how well they are personally doing on emissions.
For example, suppose it is done as an income tax reduction. People who don't make enough money to own income tax would not benefit, but they would have their costs of living go up from the increases in fuel and energy costs due to the carbon tax. They are in effect being taxed to subsidize the carbon emissions of wealthier people.
I don't see how a negative income tax is any different from a direct payout, you're just playing with terminology. Alternatively, if what you described is not a negative income tax then what you just did is a tax cut for people with high incomes which is anti progressive. People who pay little or no income taxes wouldn't get anything.
Giving to everyone equally would invest a very large number of voters in continuing and expanding the program.
Devoting 10% to carbon emissions reduction tech would fund a never-before-seen flowering of development.
Eliminating subsidies for carbon miners would be helpful.
I'd rather drag the 0% bracket into the negative than make it wider.
That means that if things you buy use cause an average amount of carbon emissions you break even. The price increases you see due to the tax are balanced out by your share of the revenue.
If your things are responsible for a less than average amount of emissions, you come out ahead. If your things are responsible for an above average amount, you pay more net.