France has agreed to pay the Republic of Congo $50 million to protect its forests.
President Emmanuel Macron said he hoped to conclude a similar $60 million deal with DR Congo as he announced the partnerships at the UN's COP28 climate talks in Dubai.
"Nature is the best technology available to capture and store CO2," he said on Saturday, adding that "we have to remunerate countries when they actively protect these forests".
The move comes a day after Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva appealed for the creation of a $250 billion fund to save tropical forests, which would pay 80 countries for their preservation efforts.
The Congo basin is among the three basins that have 80% of the world’s tropical forests and two-thirds of the Earth’s biodiversity, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
Hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest are estimated to be destroyed every year in the Congo Basin.
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