While subsidies for low-carbon technologies in order to internalise the externality of climate change can be justified from an economic point of view, doing so in a manner that is not attaining reduction objectives at least cost constitutes a waste of social resources. The fact that subsidies for VRE are attributed on the basis of a large political and societal consensus does not invalidate the fact that this is a highly inefficient, at times even counter-productive, manner from an economic point of view. Even democratically legitimated policies can be economically costly.