Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it seems to me that if you tax emissions strongly and uniformly enough, then at some point it has to have an impact. One way to look at that is that you're saying any market-based solution strong enough to be effective is indistinguishable from an outright ban. We could, for example, discourage smoking by putting a $500 tax on each pack of cigarettes. But at that point, you may as well stop pretending and ban it ou…
You are missing one big advantage of market based solutions. They raise revenue. For every dollar that is raised from taxing gasoline, is another dollar that can be used paying for social programs or whatever.
Look, for example, at civil seizure in the US. Police agencies are highly incentivized to do it since they get to keep the money, even when doing so is unjust.
In practice, tax-based solutions have pros and cons and you need to think about the incentives and unintended consequences that they lead to on both the enforcement and citizen sides. Law-based solutions do too, of course.