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> this is one of those policies which is both environmentally friendly and makes piles of economic sense

To a broader point, this is how real change is enacted: make it matter to enough folks, usually by means of economic pressures. I.e., make bad things cost more than good things. Although obviously ham-fisted tariffs, etc. aren't very effective for a host of reasons. You gotta be more subtle than that.

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Carbon needs to be taxed to create incentives to reduce use, and for society to capture the externality cost of burning fossil fuels.

> ham-fisted tariffs

Tariffs could and probably should be used to punish nations that doesn't want to play with reasonable rules though. Given reasonable politicians it could be used to make sure that everyone are applying carbon taxing and/or similar policies.

Yes, my point is just that the one-dimensional "raise prices on bad stuff" strategy invites circumnavigation efforts which make it ineffective. Tariffs for economically punishing bad actors is a useful tool in the right scenarios.

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