A carbon tax is a pigovian tax, which works purely to internalise negative externalities into the price of the good. Any purported bonus that could be achieved

A carbon tax is a pigovian tax, which works purely to internalise negative externalities into the price of the good. Any purported bonus that could be achieved by directing that money, somehow, is just that: a bonus. It would still work without it. A carbon tax would work if you burned the money. Bonus points if you captured the CO2 from the fire :) A carbon tax serves to connect our intuition to our logic. We logically know that, somehow, the sum of all our disparate little actions is responsible for global warming. But the feedback loop is notoriously long, and complex. And humans are no-to-ri-ous-ly bad at properly valuing that. We couldn't do it to save our lives, or that of our species. Furthermore, it helps break free from the tragedy of the commons, where every independent agent makes a game theoretically optimal move, to the detriment of the global system. No amount of proselytising or appealing to humane sensibilities, no amount of ecological lucidity or sudden flashes of intuitive insight into that awful feedback loop, would ever solve that problem. No weapon works better against overfishing than quotas. Not necessarily a tax, but leveraging the market similarly. No weapon works better against carbon emissions than a carbon tax. Pigovian taxes are powerful weapons in a market oriented society. Very, very powerful. This is why vested interests will do absolutely anything to prevent them. Doing something useful with the money is just a tiny cherry on top of large cake of success.