WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Donor countries yesterday  pledged a record $4.25 billion over the next four years for the  Global Environment Facility, the world’s largest public green  fund that helps developing countries tackle climate change.

The commitments by 30 donor countries during a session in  Paris yesterday is a 52 percent increase in new resources  for the facility.

GEF Chief Executive Monique Barbut said the replenishment  of funds is the first “tangible confirmation of financial  commitments” made during international climate talks in  Copenhagen in December.

In Copenhagen, negotiators from industrialized and emerging  nations sought to agree on the basic terms of a new global  climate agreement in the run-up to the next summit in Cancun,  Mexico in December.

Part of the agreement was aimed at providing financing to  developing countries to help them adapt to climate changes.  Some of those funds will be directed through the GEF into  projects implemented by U.N. agencies and development  institutions like the World Bank.

Barbut said about $1.35 billion of the new funds committed  on Wednesday would be directed at tackling climate change. The rest will be used to better manage and expand protected  and endangered areas, improve the management of trans-boundary  water systems, reduce pollutants in land and water, and  expanding and protecting the world’s forests. The new funds are a “testimony to the international donor  community’s commitment to the environmental agenda,” said Axel  van Trotsenburg, the vice president for concessional finance  and global partnerships at the World Bank.

British climate change expert Nicholas Stern, speaking at  the International Monetary Fund, called on world leaders to  reach a political agreement on climate change at Cancun in  order to lay the foundation for an international treaty in  2011.

He said the agreement should set out how $30 billion in  climate financing will be provided to developing nations over  the next three years to adapt to climate change. It should also indicate how this initial support will be  increased to $100 billion a year by 2020, in particular by  introducing new and innovative sources of funding.

The GEF has been replenished four times since its inception  in 1991 starting with $2.02 billion in 1994, $2.75 billion in  1998, $2.92 billion in 2002 and $3.13 billion in 2006.

To date, the facility has provided $8.7 billion in grants  for more than 2,400 environmental projects in over 165  developing countries and emerging economies.