South Korea and 20 other countries promised Thursday to contribute a combined US$9.4 billion to a U.N. climate fund over the next four years, the finance ministry said.

The United States and Japan promised to provide $3 billion and $1.5 billion to the Green Climate Fund (GCF), while Britain pledged to grant $1.2 billion. France and Germany will offer about $1 billion, according to the ministry.

South Korea earlier said that it will contribute $100 million to the fund, whose secretariat office was opened in Songdo, west of Seoul, in December 2013.

The decision was made during a GCF meeting in Berlin, Germany, on Thursday. The countries plan to provide the promised money in installments by the end of 2018. 

Launched in late 2010, the GCF is a U.N organization whose main objective is to channel money from industrialized nations to developing countries to help them tackle global warming and other problems related to climate change. (Yonhap)