diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index d3798d38ca..98eba066cf 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ Changes in this release:
 - added influxdb reporter for protocol endpoint metrics
 - Remove the configuration option agent-run-at-start (#1055)
 - Add project id and environment id as optional parameters to API call (#1001)
+- Fixed an issue which cleared the environment on remote python 2 interpreters
 
 v 2019.1 (2019-03-06)
 Changes in this release:
@@ -37,8 +38,8 @@ DEPRECATIONS:
 - Minimal python version is now python 3.6
 - Removal of snapshot and restore functionality from the server (#789)
 - Removed the non-version api (#526)
-- The config option agent-interval, agent-splay, autostart_agent_interval and autostart_splay are 
-deprecated in favour of agent-deploy-interval, agent-deploy-splay-time, autostart_agent_deploy_interval 
+- The config option agent-interval, agent-splay, autostart_agent_interval and autostart_splay are
+deprecated in favour of agent-deploy-interval, agent-deploy-splay-time, autostart_agent_deploy_interval
 and autostart_agent_deploy_splay_time respectively. The deprecated options will be removed in release 2019.2
 
 v 2018.3 (2018-12-07)
diff --git a/src/inmanta/agent/io/local.py b/src/inmanta/agent/io/local.py
index 036d0907a8..20defff060 100644
--- a/src/inmanta/agent/io/local.py
+++ b/src/inmanta/agent/io/local.py
@@ -397,9 +397,11 @@ def run(self, command, arguments=[], env=None, cwd=None, timeout=None):
         if env is not None:
             current_env.update(env)
         if sys.version_info < (3, 0, 0):
-            current_env = {}
+            # python < 2.7 does not support dict comprehensions
+            new_env = {}
             for k, v in current_env.items():
-                current_env[k.encode()] = str(v).encode()
+                new_env[k.encode()] = str(v).encode()
+            current_env = new_env
 
         cmds = [command] + arguments
         result = subprocess.Popen(cmds, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, env=current_env, cwd=cwd)