Externalities are hard to move fast on because you just can't get the populace excited by charging more for something, over time or suddenly. E.g. cheap fuel -

Externalities are hard to move fast on because you just can't get the populace excited by charging more for something, over time or suddenly. E.g. cheap fuel - good luck getting that past anyone without being thrown out of office. The government just needs to line up the incentives with what's good for the country on many axes. Just some examples that seem fairly rational: - 50 points for reducing carbon - 10 points for leveraging local resources - 10 points for technical innovation - 10 points for jobs growth - 10 points for defence benefits - 10 points for foreign sales benefits Iterate to refocus on what produces the most points, or update points and categories if you have better suggestions. (Edit: in the spirit of actually looking for a rational outcome, it's possible you could reduce support for externalities over time, e.g. X% per year. But EU is usually better at that than US for some reason.)