“[These] governments have largely been bankrolling or paying for their adaptation,” Janine Felson, Belize ambassador and co-lead Climate Finance Negotiator at the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), told TRT World.

“They will have to take a bit of a pain killer to swallow the cost,” Felson says, “which means that national budgets will have to be used to either reduce taxes on imports for fuels or to manage social support systems,” she adds.