So I feel exactly the opposite, yet having nothing to do with climate denial. I should state that my experience with government lies exclusively with the US, so that should be taken into account to understand much of why I feel this is an approach that would result in an outcome that's the opposite of what is desired.

Let's ditch "the thing" -- "Carbon Tax", because "the thing" has certain assumptions behind it -- like political party X or Y believes or is skeptical of climate change/carbon taxes/etc. So I'm going to just call it a Concrete Tax. You can make the connection that it's a carbon offset, is way more sophisticated than a tax ... For most citizens, "Concrete Tax" is how it's going to be experienced/understood, anyway (and for a lot of them, that might be a good thing if you support the tax).

So we start at "Government applies or increases the tax levied per (unit) of (concrete) sold (at specific supply chain point)." Your problems begin with the things in parenthesis, but let's say you've gotten them right. The arms race begins.

It isn't this simple, but as it relates to this topic, it's good enough to think of "a cement business" as a for-profit publicly traded company who -- like every for-profit publicly traded company -- has a responsibility not to keep the customer happy, not to make good products, not to help the environment, not to make the C-level executives or the employees wealthy or really do anything other than "to make money for its shareholders (owners)".

The goal of the government by levying a "Concrete Tax" is to coerce the corporation into altering its behavior -- either replacing "concrete" with "green concrete" or using something "more green", entirely -- by increasing the cost.

First, you have to look at the market. Advances have been made and are being made in to make concrete more green, more durable, and superior to other products for more purposes (both in durability and environmental impact). Really, you're seeing a diversity of products that trade-off different strengths and fit better for narrower purposes. The article didn't conclude that "things are A-OK" but reading where things are and understanding that "the pace of technology is always accelerating", we can expect that "left alone we'll have better products, anyway". Apply the tax and "the current producers" start to consolidate. It's likely the next product isn't "I Can't Believe It's Not Concrete", but rather "Concrete 2.0 -- twice as strong with 10% of the Carbon!" It's possible you make it hard to enter the market to "provide a solution" because of the closer association of the hypothetical "Concrete 2.0" and the cursed/taxed Concrete.

Once the "arms race" begins, the taxed business is rarely left with "do what the government wanted me to do". Frankly, they didn't just come out and ban it, they went the subversive route by applying a fine (sorry, tax) to the product so it's hard to judge them for not playing by the same rules. They'll start poking at "the definition of concrete"; the exclusive goal being to find "something that is taxed less" with "how well it appears environmentally" being one of many (and only as high as it must be) variables ranked according to cost/need. The common approach is to move the problem somewhere else in the supply chain where people aren't paying as much attention (kick the can down the road).

The "avoid the tax by importing it" approach is a favorite. This usually falls into the pattern of "this or that trade agreement forbids the US from taxing the imports, so we'll just stop making it over here and import it from there" or "it's taxed regardless, but they'll make it over there for half the price because they just get to pour the byproducts onto the neighbor's land", either way -- add "moving the stuff" to the environmental impact. Maybe while the bill was being written, the Concrete Lobby had "their guy" get some language in there to make sure only a component that makes up a 10% of the final product is what's actually being taxed. The regulators liked it because it's easier to track, the industry liked it because if they just import that part, that'll lower how much has to be moved. There's a loophole somewhere that'll require further adjustments to the regulation/law. In the meantime, R&D budgets are increasingly being spent on working around the tax.

In an ideal world, that "tax money" would go to a magical entity who's sole purpose would be "to create solutions to the problems concrete solves which have less environmental impact." In the US, it would be worse than "vaporized", it would go to organizations which would spend that money adding oversight/administrative burden and creating jobs that will make it a lot harder to solve the problem (once it's solved, what do we do with all of the regulators...?). Even if that organization existed and worked, the cost to transfer the money from "the business" to "that research organization" will see pennies on the dollar make it to "actually solving the problem."

I'm sorry if this sounds combative or hostile -- it's difficult to express a different opinion and avoid "sounding like a bit of a dick." I wouldn't have wasted the time, though, if I wasn't open to hearing where I'm getting it wrong. It's a difficult thing to argue, as well, because I can't say "OK, give me an example of something that was taxed which accelerated advancement/adoption of a preferred technology that worked better than just letting the preferred technology stand on its own" because once you tax it, you lose the ability to measure the result untaxed. I think the EV tax credit might be a good example of a tax that will turn out to have not been worth the cost. I think once Li-Ion technology reached the point that it was realistic to use in replacement of an ICE, the many, many other benefits beyond "the price of gas" and "smog/pollution." I decided 4 years ago my next car would be an EV, I had no idea what the tax credit was then -- gas/pollution/the tax credit were not factors for me. My factors were convenience of filling up at-home, maintenance, overall simplicity, electronic features, and performance. Any two of those being radically better than ICE and I'm buying electric at a 25% premium. Add to it that my driving patterns have evolved that even the lowest-range EV available in the US would ideally fit my needs, and owning an ICE vehicle stops being a "baseline" and you start seeing all of the inconveniences pile on. Now, in 1999 when GM produced the EV-1 using a $40,000 battery that was in (most ways) worse than an ICE-based vehicle, there wouldn't have been any amount of green points" that would have gotten all but the wealthiest among us to buy one. The tech was so far* from being ready that even were it offered at competitive prices it would have been dismissed.