The Guardian Environment

• ‘A shift no country can ignore’: where global emissions stand, 10 years after the Paris climate agreement

  The watershed summit in 2015 was far from perfect, but its impact so far has been significant and measurable

  Ten years on from the historic Paris climate summit, which ended with the world’s first and only global agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, it is easy to dwell on its failures. But the successes go less remarked.

  Renewable energy smashed records last year, growing by 15% and accounting for more than 90% of all new power generation capacity. Investment in clean energy topped $2tn, outstripping that into fossil fuels by two to one.

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• ‘The worst is when the rubbish explodes’: the children living in Patagonia’s vast dumps

  In sprawling landfills, thousands of Argentinian families scavenge for survival amid toxic waste and government neglect, dreaming of steady jobs and escape

  The sun rises over the plateau of Neuquén’s open-air rubbish tip. Maia, nine, and her brothers, aged 11 and seven, huddle by a campfire. Their mother, Gisel, rummages through bags that smell of rotten fruit and meat.

  Situated at the northern end of Argentinian Patagonia, 100km (60 miles) from Vaca Muerta – one of the world’s largest fossil gas reserves – children here roam amid twisted metal, glass and rubbish spread over five hectares (12 acres). The horizon is waste.

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• Country diary: Clinging to a crag in a place of constant change | Eben Muse

  Neath, south Wales: This quarry built the abbey and the nearby terraced towns – and it’s different every time I visit

  The way to Neath Abbey Quarry is a perfect stranger to me this morning. It’s been three years since my last visit, and the maze of the path has shifted; old tree trunks have turned to mulch and the brook carves a different channel. My companion and I shoulder big bouldering pads, poorly proportioned for tight manoeuvres, yet we bump, turn and pivot our way through. Thanks to the late sunrise, we’re gifted a lingering coda of the dawn chorus, coming from a holly thicket heavy with berries. A goldcrest fizzes around ahead of us, seeking bugs startled by our approach.

  Like every old quarry, this place has been host to much change. Once it was just a plain old hill, then a source of building blocks for monks and their abbey. Much later, it was extracted again for the terraced towns of the south Wales coalfield. Once that need had faded, climbers found the place, hacking paths through the tangle and stringing ropes up its face.

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• EA to spend millions clearing Oxfordshire illegal waste mountain in break with policy

  Announcement draws anger from Labour MP over refusal to remove tonnes of rubbish dumped near school in Wigan

  The Environment Agency is to spend millions of pounds to clear an enormous illegal rubbish dump in Oxfordshire, saying the waste is at risk of catching fire.

  But the decision announced on Thursday to clear up the thousands of tonnes of waste illegally dumped outside Kidlington has drawn an angry response from a Labour MP in Greater Manchester whose constituents have been living alongside 25,000 tonnes of toxic rubbish for nearly a year.

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• ‘Soil is more important than oil’: inside the perennial grain revolution

  Scientists in Kansas believe Kernza could cut emissions, restore degraded soils and reshape the future of agriculture

  On the concrete floor of a greenhouse in rural Kansas stands a neat grid of 100 plastic plant pots, each holding a straggly crown of strappy, grass-like leaves. These plants are perennials – they keep growing, year after year. That single characteristic separates them from soya beans, wheat, maize, rice and every other major grain crop, all of which are annuals: plants that live and die within a single growing season.

  “These plants are the winners, the ones that get to pass their genes on [to future generations],” says Lee DeHaan of the Land Institute, an agricultural non-profit based in Salina, Kansas. If DeHaan’s breeding programme maintains its current progress, the descendant of these young perennial crop plants could one day usher in a wholesale revolution in agriculture.

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