The climate war is destructive, dumb as a bag of hammers, but Scott Morrison is prepared to wage it anyway | Katharine Murphy

Things are obviously pretty challenging for the prime minister right at the minute, and he is on the clock for an election. Morrison has looked for weeks like a leader hunting for a knockout blow.

The prime minister wants a fight with Labor that helps his re-election chances. Anthony Albanese has spent the best part of three years refusing to give him one. Morrison has had to box imaginary alternative scenarios. But the fighting season is now upon us.

The climate science clearly tells us a medium-term emissions reduction target bigger than a 43% cut is needed. But the previous election result tells us not all Australians are ready to accept the accelerated transition the science demands. So 43% is the agreed landing point.

But Morrison showed on Friday he is prepared to wage the war anyway, just to get a grip on something. Anything, really.

Never mind that the prime minister tried, in the lead-up to the Cop26 in Glasgow, to engineer a higher 2030 emissions reduction target himself (although not as high as 43%) only to be thwarted by Barnaby Joyce. All that climate pivot stuff is so pre-Glasgow.

Now before anyone rolls their eyes, I encourage you to explore the path Morrison has mapped, because post-election coalitions are quite interesting thought experiments if you spend a few minutes piecing together scenarios.

I suspect independents like Zali Stegall, or Allegra Spender (in Wentworth) or Zoe Daniel (in Goldstein), would face pressure locally in a minority government scenario to try to reach agreement with Morrison first, rather than back in a Labor government.

More importantly, what would the Nationals do? There is a core group in the Nationals party room utterly opposed to near and medium-term ambition. But when faced with a choice between staying on the government benches and doing more, which impulse prevails?

Understand, too, that the deals could orbit around the same set of issues.

Between now and election day, whatever reheated bollocks you might hear, there is much in play.