I don't know why you contrast "incentives and legislation" with "taxes"? What kind of legislation are you thinking of, which would produce incentives to reduce

I don't know why you contrast "incentives and legislation" with "taxes"? What kind of legislation are you thinking of, which would produce incentives to reduce the pollution, if not to make it so that one profits more by polluting less? Or are you thinking of some other way to make it so that one profits more by polluting less, which somehow doesn't qualify as a "tax"? I suppose you could give all the companies that might be hit under this (the amount of money that they would be taxed if addressing it with a tax, if they didn't change their behavior from their current behavior) - (the amount of money they would be taxed if addressing it with a tax, given their actual behavior), and then say that "you aren't taxing them, you are just paying them more to stop polluting", and, ok, sure, in a sense, but that also just seems like... why? That's just the "tax" them solution, but adding on some arbitrary gift. Why give them that gift?