By Myles Allen, University of Oxford

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

It must be painful for Boris Johnson to be a footnote, especially a footnote in French, but at the end of a very long two weeks, there were always only two outcomes possible at the UN climate summit in Glasgow. A Copenhagen-style meltdown, putting the implementation of the Paris Agreement on hold for years. Or a footnote.

A meltdown was never in anyone’s interest, so we have ended up with a footnote. A long footnote, an important footnote, but a footnote nonetheless. The Glasgow Climate Pact saw rules clarified (sort of), more finance, especially for adaptation (but still not enough), greater clarity on long-term goals and the treatment of climate-related loss and damage, and some (still inadequate) progress on short-term commitments.

And if we…