Mr Morrison, not long ago an advocate of coal, and a sceptic on renewables and the likely take-up by Australian motorists of electric vehicles, is between a rock and a hard place on the climate issue.

The ground has shifted dramatically. More and more voters accept the need to act on global warming in the wake of the drought and bushfires.

The election of Joe Biden in the US, which has seen America rejoin the Paris Agreement and commit to zero emissions by 2050 or better, is a real game changer.

Global warming, and the need to achieve the net-zero target by 2050, were high on the agenda when Mr Morrison had his first phone call with President Biden last Thursday.

Australia's middle-of-the-road voters, the ones who handed Mr Morrison his "miracle" election win, have seen their country crisp and burn. They have accepted the need for urgent emissions reductions, even if it comes at some cost to themselves, as a mainstream issue.

The PM knows that in order to guarantee victory when he goes to the polls either later this year or early in 2022 he will have to have a credible policy on how to achieve this.

That is why, as part of his National Press Club address, he was at pains to state his "preference" for zero emissions by 2050, the closest this government has yet come to matching the ALP's policy.

Mr Morrison's follow-up statement, that achieving the goal would depend on technology and the protection of "jobs and living standards particularly in regional Australia", was a big nod to the greatest single political challenge he has ever faced.

That is how to get the Abbott-era rump of climate deniers in the Liberal Party, and self-interested and short-sighted Nationals parliamentarians, to come along for the journey.

His reference to technology appears to be a vain hope technological fixes, such as the remarkable developments with EVs and reductions in the cost of renewables, will get Australia there without the need for direct government intervention.

That, with the greatest of respect, is an absolute cop out. Mr Morrison, Josh Frydenberg, and more environmentally literate Nationals such as agriculture minister David Littleproud, have to tell the recalcitrants, of whom Barnaby Joyce, Matt Canavan, Bridget McKenzie, and Craig Kelly are just a few, that they are well out of step with prevailing public opinion.

While the PM could conceivably sign Australia up to a new target during the UN climate change conference in Glasgow later this year, it seems extremely unlikely he would be willing to do so.

Mr Joyce has already indicated he would blow up any semblance of Coalition unity by crossing the floor on emissions legislation he does not like.

"You will have a section of the National Party crossing the floor," he said last week. "And when it comes to crossing the floor, the first time is painful, the second time is a breeze."

And, more recently, resources minister and Nationals senator Matt Canavan described the whole climate change debate as "a distraction" and said the zero emissions target was "mythical".

The PM, having now had his own epiphany on where the climate target needs to be, faces an almost biblical dilemma in that he is dealing with people who exemplify the phrase: "There are none so blind as those who will not see." It's time to let the light shine in.