COP26: Glasgow climate summit was seen as a debacle for Scott Morrison - but will it cost him at the next election?

This time at least, the Prime Minister delivered.

World leaders can now be in no doubt, if doubts ever existed, about Australia and its conservative government's determination to keep its fossil fuel industry alive and upright against the headwinds of a rapid global shift to clean energy.

It was by no accident or oversight gas and oil giant Santos and its carbon capture and storage project in outback South Australia were afforded such prominence inside Australia's pavilion at the COP26 summit.

At an event aimed at accelerating global action to slash emissions, this was the "Australian Way" - better described as the Morrison Way - on full and naked display.

Before flying out to Europe, Morrison and Energy Minister Angus Taylor promised coal and gas workers - and the regional communities in which they live and work - that Australia wouldn't need to shut down its industries to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

Thanks to technology - such as carbon carbon and storage - Australia would apparently be able to have its cake and eat it, too.

In Glasgow, Morrison held true to his word, eschewing his new AUKUS allies in the process.

Australia snubbed a Joe Biden-led push to slash methane emissions by 2030, and declined to join a Boris Johnson-convened coalition of more than 40 countries promising to end the use and investment in coal-fired power.

The government's position was stitched up well in advance of Glasgow, almost certainly as one of the conditions the Nationals insisted on in exchange for backing a net zero target.

To the despair of our Pacific neighbours, for whom global warming poses an immediate existential threat, Morrison left Scotland with a rubbery new 2030 emission reduction projection but no new target.

Australia pledged an extra $500 million to help developing countries in our region tackle climate change, but refused to do so through the UN climate fund Morrison famously withdrew from during a radio interview with Alan Jones.

The Morrison government's performance at Glasgow has seen Australia cast once again as a climate action laggard.

Factor in the the spat with French President Emmanuel Macron over lies, leaked texts and submarines, which overshadowed everything in Glasgow, and it's easy to understand how the trip has been described as a debacle of unprecedented proportions.

But to simply frame the Glasgow summit and the Coalition's climate agenda as an abject failure for Morrison would be ignore or underplay the one thing he values most - domestic politics.

The blue brochure containing the government's net zero roadmap almost certainly had more substance as a political document, than a credible climate or energy policy.

Lets start with the 2050 target, which was agreed to after weeks of tedious public debate and private talks between the Liberals and Nationals.

Green groups and experts rightly dismiss a mid-century net zero target as all but meaningless as a climate policy unless it is coupled with deeper interim cuts and a clear plan on how to ultimately reach carbon neutrality.

But as former climate negotiator Howard Bamsey last week told The Canberra Times, simply uttering the words "net zero by 2050" immediately put Australia in the "mainstream" in Glasgow.

It wouldn't be the star of the summit, Prof Bamsey said, but nor would it be the pariah many had thought it would be.

So as long as heavy emitters China, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia avoid setting 2050 targets, countries such as Australia have political cover to drag their heels.

Domestically, the 2050 target hands the inner-city Liberals who face challenges from Greens or independents at the next election, including Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, Katie Allen, Dave Sharma, Tim Wilson and Trent Zimmerman, something to hold onto it.

Not much, but something.

If net zero by 2050 didn't carry at least some potential domestic political benefit, why would Morrison have risked potentially blowing up the Coalition in order to secure it? Why risk unleashing Clive Palmer and Pauline Hanson against him?

In setting a target, but a weak one, Morrison has made a political calculation climate change is an important issue, but not the huge vote swinger some published polls suggest.

The government's refusal to update its Abbott-era 2030 target was widely condemned at Glasgow, where the focus has been on accelerating carbon pollution this decade.

Australia could have brought the target in line with its updated 2030 projection, which forecasts emissions could fall up to 35 per cent on 2005 levels. But it chose not to.

The Nationals would've never agreed to deeper cuts this decade, leaving Morrison little choice.

But it's easy to see how the Prime Minister would've been quietly content keeping Australia's short-term goals as is.

It allows his government to maintain it is "meeting and beating" its mediocre Paris target, while boasting of how it has protected jobs and industries in battleground seats in regional Queensland and NSW.

It also invites, even deliberately baits, Labor to one-up the Coalition with its own 2030 target - something it did to disastrous effect at the 2019 election.

But the Coalition must surely appreciate the landscape has changed since then.

Take the stance of the Business Council of Australia, which is now advocating for an even more ambitious 2030 target than the one it described as "economy-wrecking" when Bill Shorten took it to the last election.

Labor is also no longer framing climate action as a moral imperative, but rather as an economic opportunity. It has backed the coal and gas sectors in rhetoric and policy, and supports carbon capture and storage.

Whatever policies and targets Anthony Albanese and his climate and energy man Chris Bowen settle on, it will consolidate climate as an election issue.

Set higher targets than the Coalition, and Morrison and Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce will surely attempt to frame Labor as bad news for traditional industries.

Settle for mediocre targets and the Greens will pounce.

The Coalition's net zero roadmap was always more about domestic politics than climate policy.

We won't have to wait until 2050 to found out if it has achieved the desired outcome.

A federal election is due before the end of May.