A 195-nation wrangle that ended Saturday with the historic Paris pact had to be the anti-Copenhagen: as flawlessly organised as the 2009 summit was chaotic, as much a success as the other was a traumatising blow for climate diplomacy.

By nearly any measure and all accounts, France pulled it off. From the gourmet tofu sandwiches to the subtle handling of negotiations compared by one analyst to a 12-dimensional Rubik’s Cube, the French hosts of the UN climate conference have been showered with praise.

“It’s the most skillful diplomacy I’ve seen in the more than two decades that I’ve been going to this kind of meetings,” former US vice-president Al Gore said.

“It’s quite eerie, I must tell you,” said WWF climate expert Tasneem Essop, a veteran of the often messy 21-year process, commenting on how negotiating deadlines were being met. “It never happens.”

After the fiasco of Copenhagen — which ended with some 115 world leaders scrambling overnight to save face and cobble together a political accord — hosting the next critical climate conference was a big risk.

Getting virtually all the world’s nations to agree on transforming the energy system underlying the world economy was bound to be tricky. But the French did not have to push hard for the assignment.