Whatever the truth about global warming, the politics of the issue is as much about power and who has it as it is about the environment. Whether it’s those who believe man-made global warming is an imminent threat to human existence or those who simply see it as a key to greater political power, global governance is where the belief that we can manage climate change ultimately leads us.

On July 9, none other than the venerable guru of climate change, Al Gore, articulated this in a speech at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment in Oxford, England. In commenting on the US House of Representatives passage of the Waxman-Markey climate bill, Gore claimed that it “will dramatically increase the prospects for success” in combating the “crisis” of man-made global warming. “But it is the awareness itself that will drive the change and one of the ways it will drive the change is through global governance and global agreements.”

Never mind that Gore is well on his way to becoming the first climate-change billionaire or that his carbon footprint is the size of a Titanosaurus, we should take him seriously when he talks about global governance.

Since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which established country-by-country limits on greenhouse-gas emissions, the international community has moved slowly but surely in that direction. Although the US Senate failed to ratify Kyoto, 183 of the signatories have. In December 2007, the UN climate conference in Bali proposed a global carbon tax. As with Kyoto, the US and other wealthy industrialized nations would bare the greatest burden.

Americans, of course, are less concerned about global governance and regulation than they are about how Waxman-Markey, if passed by the Senate and signed by the president, would affect their lives. The bill, intended to reduce US dependence on fossil fuels, promote clean energy sources, and reduce global warming, would introduce unprecedented government regulation of energy production and use in the United States. Opponents argue it would stifle US economic growth and cost US businesses billions they would pass on to consumers. If that weren’t bad enough, you couldn’t sell your house until it conformed to US energy conservation codes.

Senate passage of the bill is in doubt. Beside the burden it would impose on individual Americans during a deep and lasting recession, it would have no impact on climate change without similar regulations by big polluters China and India; and they have no intention of placing restrictions on their own economic growth.

Regardless, the Obama White House and Democrats in Congress, with the support of a few Republicans, will continue their attempts to restructure the energy sector of the US economy. The true believers among them and their supporters are convinced it’s the right and necessary things to do, and they see global agreements on climate change as part of their strategy. They’ve accepted Gore’s assertions and mainstream studies on climate change as infallible, and they pay no heed to Machiavelli’s observation that, “Some people know everything, and that is all they know.”

Others have less altruistic goals. They are well-versed on Machiavelli. They understand that, “there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”

For them, joining the climate-change movement is like joining the Knights Templar--the Christian military order in the Middle Ages that amassed great wealth and power in the name of defending the faithful. It allows them to pursue “a new order of things” that goes way beyond climate change. It includes social engineering, “social justice,” and the transfer of wealth on a grand scale. Many European countries already have moved far along this path. US politicians who want to do the same understand the immense obstacles, resistance, and political risks they face in attempting to doing so.   

President Barack Obama may be a true believer, a would-be Machiavelli, or a little of both; nevertheless, he shows every indication that he’s moving in the “global” direction. In his trips abroad he has signaled a new US attitude on America’s role in the world and on international climate-change initiatives and agreements. His support of the Waxman-Markey bill demonstrates his belief in of the carbon-tax philosophy and his willingness to put the US out front on energy issues. He supports a new treaty that goes beyond Kyoto’s reduction of green-house gas emissions.

The fundamental issue for Americans isn’t whether global warming is or isn’t occurring; it’s how best we can hedge our bets. Americans have ample national security and economic reasons in addition to concern for the global environment to develop alternative energy sources and pursue energy independence. But do we believe that bills like Waxman-Markey or a United Nations-managed global carbon tax can best help us accomplish that? Or will they infringe unnecessarily on individual freedom and liberty and prove harmful to human growth and development while having little or no environmental effect? Is the path that ultimately leads to “global governance,” as Gore suggests, the one we really have to take?

Government and the international community, of course, have important roles to play, but if America’s past economic success proves anything, it’s that government works best when it encourages and provides incentives for innovative and creative solutions, not when it attempts to dictate them. Alternative energy sources and new technologies will reduce reliance on fossil fuels a lot faster if governments and international organizations use their power and influence to nurture them rather than creating a maze of bureaucratic regulations that will stifle them. We should listen to Al Gore when he speaks, occasionally he says something interesting!