that's the only way to incentivize people to optimize their routes, habits, switch to hybrid/electrics, otherwise consequences can be much tougher in 30-50 years with no way to fix it.
Poor people cannot afford an EV now, and they cannot afford a $2/gallon tax. Taking away options without supplying any new ones will cause a large number of people to be unable to commute to work and huge economic upheaval.
I don't see how you come to such conclusion, I think $2/gallon tax will be some fraction of total ownership cost for the car (fuel, car cost, insurance, maintenance), those who can't afford that fraction can't afford car too.
There are many people out there who can barely afford a car. On average gasoline accounts for ~16% of people's transportation budgets and ~2.5% of their take-home pay (obviously, these numbers are using average everything). A $2/gallon tax is an increase of a little more than 50% (not in California, but using the US average price). So that's more than 1.25% of their tax home pay and 8% of their transportation cost. That's a lot. And again, those are averages. For people at the bottom it's worse.
It's not a lot if you are making six-figures. But for a lot of people it quite literally puts driving to work as too expensive.
its totally not a lot given we are talking about future of planet and humanity and that penalties on children of exactly the same people will be much higher if we won't stop pollute the planet.