Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has bought a reprieve from a leadership coup by abandoning Australia’s legislated climate targets and pledging to keep coal plants online, mirroring Nationals policy as she fights to keep the Coalition together and convince voters it will deliver cheaper power bills.

After weeks of pressure from the right, Ley signed off on a plan to ditch the 2050 net zero target and scrap Labor’s suite of emissions reduction mechanisms, adopting the Morrison-era technology-not-taxes mantra to open up a new front in Australia’s long-running climate wars.

Pro-net zero MPs claimed a small victory after the party included a policy talking point that net zero was a “welcome outcome”, even though this was much weaker than a target or aspiration. Yet top Moderates derided the new platform as “incoherent”, lacking detail or pathways to bring down costs or reduce emissions, and not easily able to be sold to the public.

“Others might be playing word games,” Ley told reporters, rejecting a suggestion that she avoided using terms such as aspiration or target purely because conservatives opposed such strong terms.

“I could not be more clear when I say we are removing net zero targets and long-term targets from our policy.

“Let’s not misunderstand what climate action is. If people think that this government’s approach to so-called climate action is working, they should have a really good look at it because it is actually not bringing emissions down.”

The feud over net zero turned into a proxy for the future of the party and a test of Ley’s leadership skills and ability to craft a more modern Liberal agenda after a crushing election loss. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese seized on the crisis, describing the Liberals as “more right-wing, more sceptical, more in denial about climate change”. Teal MPs and Greens also slammed the move.

Frontbencher Tim Wilson asked for his opposition to the new policy to be formally recorded in a tense meeting of the shadow ministry on Thursday. Several MPs questioned in the meeting how the party would explain the dumping of net zero to the public, though most agree that Labor was vulnerable on energy.

Wilson and Senator Maria Kovacic, who support net zero, are weighing up their futures on the frontbench. Another Moderate, Andrew Bragg, told colleagues he was satisfied with remaining in the Paris Agreement, pledging to set targets for the 2030s and speaking about net zero as a “welcome outcome”.

Ley will move to harmonise the Liberal policy with Nationals leader David Littleproud ahead of a Sunday meeting of Coalition MPs.

Ley and her frontbench agreed to some key principles put forward by the Nationals when the junior Coalition party jumped the Liberals by abandoning net zero earlier this month, including the idea of reducing emissions no more quickly than comparable nations.

Even if Moderates do not resign en masse, MPs across the factional divide judge that Ley’s authority had been nearly fatally damaged in the saga over net zero.

A top Right faction source said she was probably safe for now because she agreed to kill net zero, despite not expressing a personal view in meetings this week, and leading to rivals Angus Taylor and Andrew Hastie not wanting to move immediately. However, events may unravel more quickly than anticipated.

“The immigration policy will be the next big test,” one conservative MP said, forecasting more pain for Ley as her support base in the Moderates mulls over how firmly they support a leader who scrapped climate targets.

Littleproud, whose party’s voters are more sceptical of renewable energy than city-based Liberal voters, argued Ley’s move “in many ways mirrors what the National Party was able to articulate”. Littleproud and Ley have a prickly relationship.

“That takes leadership, that takes some maturity,” he said. “What I saw is the Liberal Party take our hand and take a huge step forward in starting that conversation to the Australian public.”

Ley said net zero was an unrealistic target but refrained from anti-net zero talking points unless asked directly, highlighting a desire to focus on the consequences of Labor’s policies rather than campaigning against net zero as a concept.

“They’ve won the argument to get rid of 2050, but this isn’t going to be an Andrew Hastie-style crusade on net zero,” one MP said.

Ley still did not express a personal view in the Thursday meeting, frustrating MPs who have been disappointed with her lack of leadership on the issue.

Taylor, a leader of the party’s right flank, backed the move to kill net zero, telling Sky News: “We’re going back to technology not taxes.”

Focus in the party will turn to how to convince voters that the Liberal agenda will lower both emissions and prices, after party campaign boss Andrew Hirst told MPs that voters could sour on Labor’s net zero plan if they were convinced it was hurting them financially.

Ley did not say when energy bills would come down under a prospective Liberal government.

“It’s 2½ years until the election,” Ley said. “I want to make this point very clear: those energy bills will be much lower under us.

“We remain committed to the Paris Agreement and to doing our fair share to reduce emissions, but we will do it in a way that protects households and budgets.”

The bumpy transition to a green future has meant that some state governments have kept coal plants alive longer than expected. Energy spokesman Dan Tehan backed this approach, but was vague on the question of potentially using government money for fossil fuels and new technologies on carbon capture and storage and nuclear.

“We will make sure that we have a technology-agnostic approach,” he said. “We will support the state governments, Victoria, NSW and Queensland, who are already sweating their coal assets … to make sure we keep capacity in the system.”

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.