And that is indeed what it's always been about, back to the days of Margaret Thatcher, when the British government first incentivized researchers to produce evidence showing carbon caused global warming, and not the reverse[1]. It's always been about taking out Thatcher's political enemies in the fossil fuel industry.
AGW is a terrific example of how political campaigns can go viral and become their own self-sustaining anti-fill-in-the-blank movements, given the right mix of ingredients.