People who believe not only that CO2 is the primary cause of warming, but that the man-made component of CO2 in the atmosphere is the primary cause of warming are simply gullible beyond belief. They have fallen for a scam, plain and simple.
The only way to believe such foolishness is to never have studied the millions of years of temperature fluctuations throughout the Earth's recent history. True believers in AGW have to deny the existence of the two Holocene optimums, the Minoan warm period, the Roman warm period, the Medieval warm period, plus the cooling phases in between them such as the Little Ice Age, etc. Then they base their entire belief system on an increase in CO2 during the warming from the LIA back to temperatures that are normal for the current interglacial climate (the Holocene). They mistakenly assume the increase in CO2 is the cause of the warming that occurred due to other factors, and presto: AGW is born.
The terrible science behind AGW does serve one "useful" purpose: it has become the basis for a variety of scams to regulate, tax and trade CO2, and that is why it is still being hyped in spite of disasters such as Climategate. There is too much money at stake for the AGW scammers to simply give up and walk away. Governments want the tax revenue from regulating CO2. Congress recently submitted budget projections to the CBO (used to estimate the size of future deficits) which included $873 Billion in tax revenue from regulating CO2 over a 10 year period. That is 873 billion reasons for them to want AGW to be believed to be true. It is not only governments. Some businesses want the transaction fees and profits from trading CO2 permits. Estimates of the size of those markets vary, but they are all measured in TRILLIONS of dollars. Other businesses want the handouts and competitive advantages they have been promised in return for their support for cap-and-trade schemes.
Better hypotheses to explain Earth's constantly changing climate exist, but they all have to do with mechanisms that affect the Earth's albedo (reflectivity) and/or the amount of radiation reaching the Earth. These include variations in the amount of radiation from the Sun, the combined magnetic field strength of the Sun and the Earth with respect to cosmic rays forming aerosol particles in the Earth's atmosphere, variations in the Earth's orbit and axial tilt, and so on. Other important forcings include oceanic/atmospheric circulation patterns such as the PDO, NAO, etc. However, none of the causes from any of these competing hypotheses can be regulated or taxed or traded - which is the primary reason the failed AGW hypothesis is still being hyped.
Meanwhile, the current grand solar minimum of solar cycle 24 combined the PDO entering a cooling phase essentially guarantees that the next 30 years will have gradually cooling temperatures. This process has already begun (the transition from warming to cooling occurred during the 2000's), and the effects of the cooling are starting to be noticed by more and more people over time. Incredibly, the AGW scammers are now trying to convince people that global warming leads to global cooling. Fortunately, most people with an ounce of common sense are not buying that B.S. anymore. The scammers are also trying to shift their AGW scare tactics away from temperature trends (which are not cooperating) toward ocean acidification instead.
At this point, with the competing hypotheses finally being disseminated and published (after being successfully suppressed for so long), I don't believe they are going to have much luck with their AGW re-branding efforts. The only thing I can be sure of is that they will keep on trying.