Carbon taxes are unpopular because you are literally pulling future damage done to the economy, which cannot be observed, only predicted, and making people pay for it today, when the harm hasn't arrived yet. People think that this is pointless or even harmful because they don't like paying for things and expect others to bear the costs.
I have no idea how to fix it. Even when you tell people about it, they will disagree with the concept of a carbon tax plus dividend.
That’s why you want escalation in carbon taxation. The ideal situation is nobody is paying the tax because they have swapped to something else.
The point is to convince people building infrastructure to build something else because their giant fossil fuel investments wouldn’t be economically viable where green solutions would be.
I have no idea how to fix it. Even when you tell people about it, they will disagree with the concept of a carbon tax plus dividend.