There is also an obvious market response if something like that was actually introduced. If burning carbon cost more, people would buy more fuel efficient cars. Then those cars enter the used market a few years later.
This is one of the reasons the only sensible carbon tax proposal is the one where all of the tax revenue is distributed back to the population. In the first year, there will be more demand for efficient cars than existing supply, so they'll cost more. People who drive a lot will buy them anyway, but can use the refund to offset the cost. People who don't drive as much would eat the cost of the carbon tax on a less efficient vehicle, which isn't so bad because they don't drive as much, and then gets offset by the refund until more efficient cars filter into the used market. When that happens the tax revenue goes down because people have more efficient cars, so the refund gets smaller, but by then people don't need it as much because they have the more efficient cars.