If you were king, I'm sure the carbon tax would be efficient, simple, and fair. But we live in representative democracies beset with special interests and ulterior motives, which means any carbon tax that our systems of government would actually end up implementing would not be efficient, simple, or fair.

No it won't be. But every other alternative to it would be worse.

I think you're underestimating just how badly a carbon tax could be implemented. If you don't account for the carbon emissions of e.g. imported goods, or carve out enough exceptions for specific influential special interests, you just end up accomplishing nothing other than regressively taxing the entire population.

The government is going to screw up anything they touch. So yes they'll screw up the carbon tax, but that's also an argument against any other measure they take to address the climate crisis. The carbon tax is more efficient than any other proposed measure, so you have to argue that they'll screw up the carbon tax more than they'll screw up the other stuff.

> you just end up accomplishing nothing other than regressively taxing the entire population.

Pick one. If it accomplishes nothing, it's not an effective tax either.

I posted at the top of this thread. Just want to clarify that I don't advocate for "incentives" like carbon credits or something, I advocate for government treating carbon removal as infrastructure, the way we build roads etc

That's how you end up with $20B NASA rockets that are inferior to $100M SpaceX rockets.