The head of the UN’s climate fund has hailed a “paradigm shift” as poor countries began receiving money to help them tackle global warming, weeks before climate talks take place in Paris.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is intended to be the major conduit for funding to flow from wealthy economies built on fossil fuels to those that will suffer most from climate change they did not cause.

On Friday at its board meeting in Zambia, the fund released $183m (£122m) for eight projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The executive director, Hela Cheikhrouhou, said the symbolic significance of getting the fund up and running before the Paris talks outweighed the relatively tiny amount released. “It is a very important step forward in the global effort to fight climate change,” she said.

It is a very important step forward in the global effort to fight climate change.

Many developing countries have indicated that their commitments to cut emissions are conditional on support from wealthy nations. The developed world has agreed that poor countries should receive $100bn a year by 2020, but have so far pledged just $10.2bn to the GCF.

Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development, said he was disappointed that when the climate finance floodgates had finally been thrown open, just a trickle had emerged. “At this pace it will take them years to disburse the funds they already have with them, let alone $100bn a year in five years from now,” he said.