Couple of things: the wealthy absolutely emit more carbon then everyone else. Second, from a macroeconomics point of view, it doesn’t really matter if you tax the supplier or the consumer — in theory, it balances out the same.
> the wealthy absolutely emit more carbon then everyone else
Probably true, but probably not proportionally so. If you are 10x, 100x or 1000x as wealthy as me, you are probably not emitting 10x, 100x or 1000x more carbon than me. This makes an emission tax still disproportionate in some sense.
It actually can be proportional. What do rich do with their money? More money with factories, mines, refineries etc they own directly or via funds, and exactly these are taxed.
But the rich don't pay those carbon taxes. That simply gets rolled into the price of whatever they produce. It's the people buying the end product that pay for it.
A wealthy person could also simply not invest in these businesses. They could invest in nothing at all.
The point about it not mattering so much whether you’re taxing the supply side or the demand side is that higher prices ultimately lead to lower sales, effecting the producer.
That’s the whole point of a carbon tax — to make carbon unaffordable. While at first that will likely be “regressive” (since most consumption is carbon driven), over time it would lead to decoupling carbon from the supply chain through innovation.
