There are signs that the link between GDP growth and carbon emissions is starting to sever, according to new analysis from the World Resources Institute. In both 2014 and 215, the International Energy Agency found that emissions stalled while the economy grew, and now the new WRI study shows that 21 countries, including the US, have already fully decoupled economic growth from carbon emissions. “It’s really exciting, and it suggests that countries can sever the historic link between economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions,” said Nate Aden, who carried out the research. Carbon Brief also covered the story, and ran its own analysis.

Almost half of world heritage sites, including the Great Barrier Reef, the Grand Canyon and China’s giant panda sanctuaries, are under threat from industrial activities, according to WWF. These activities include fossil fuel exploration and illegal logging, according to the group. 114 of 229 sites have oil, gas or mining concessions, according to TIME, which also covers the story. WWF urged companies to obey UN appeals that all heritage sites should be “no go” areas for oil and gas exploration, mines, unsustainable timber production and overfishing, said Reuters. The Daily Mail also covers the story.

Citing Carbon Brief analysis, the Guardian factchecks claims that UK climate change policies have been responsible for the Tata steel crisis. It says that Tata pays around £7.5m a year towards the UK’s climate change efforts, which is roughly the same as the plant was losing every week. Emil Dimantchev, a climate policy analyst at Thomson Reuters, tells the Guardian that the EU emissions trading scheme had delivered the Port Talbot works more than £239m between 2008 and 2014, suggesting that they may also have benefitted from climate policies.

Climate change could cause a soil crisis that could hit food production, according to a new study 17 years in the making. It says that microbes could be far less adaptable to changing conditions than expected, so that they will not be able to carry out essential functions, such as breaking down leaves and other organic matter — a process which converts them into the nutrients that plants need to grow. “If the microbial community is not as resilient as we had assumed, then it calls into question the resilience of the overall environment to climate change,” said report author Vanessa Bailey.

A group of nine banks and investors have committed $8bn to a collaboration that they say will help them bypass constraints to funding some of the world’s toughest sustainable development issues. The funds are part of the Catalytic Finance Initiative that was launched by Bank of America Merrill Lynch two years ago, which HSBC and Credit Agricole have now joined. The group has promised to raise at least $10bn to accelerate clean energy investments by “de-risking” investments.

Gina McCarthy, administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, has set out its priorities for 2016, before Obama leaves office. The EPA will finalise a rule on methane leaks from new oil and gas drilling sites this spring, she told reporters. It is also working on a methane rule for existing wells. The EPA is also helping states to continue their work on carbon reduction under the Clean Power Plan, despite the stay from the Supreme Court. McCarthy will go to Ottawa this week for discussions on US-Canada climate strategies. A separate article in the Financial Times says that US businesses are lining up on separate sides of the Clean Power Plan debate, with tech companies such as Apple and Google supporting it, and coal producers and local electricity companies opposing.

Martin Wolf goes through the steps which mean that fossil fuel assets will be left stranded in the future as the world seeks to tackle climate change. His comments come off the back of Oxford University analysis, which last week suggested that no new plants could be created after 2017 without breaking the carbon budget. There are several solutions to the problem, he says, such as carbon pricing, subsidies, and geoengineering, but each comes with its own problems. He concludes that “the time for decisive change is right now, not decades in future. But the world is not really serious about climate, is it? It prefers fiddling while the planet burns.”

A new paper examines significant advances in communicating climate change since 2010 and identifies emerging trends and topics. The authors say that despite some important progress, persistent challenges remain in transitioning from awareness and concern to action, communicating in deeply politicised and polarised environments, and dealing with the growing sense of overwhelm and hopelessness.

Pluvial flooding in urban areas may happen because of temporarily reduced efficiency of surface drainage, even when the underlying storm sewers are properly designed. A model applied to the town of Genoa in Italy finds micro-topography has the potential to impact the efficiency of surface drainage and exacerbate local flooding.