After the University of East Anglia’s email scandal, climate sceptics now believe they have another cause for celebration. Some British papers claimed this week that climate change “theories” are in doubt because of the retraction of an unfounded claim in an Intergovernmental Panel on ­Climate Change ­report from 2007.

The item alleged that the glaciers of the Himalayas could disappear by 2035. It was drawn from a campaigning report by the WWF, which had taken it from an interview with an Indian glaciologist published years earlier in New Scientist. It was not based on peer-reviewed science and should not have been included in the IPCC’s fourth assessment report.

The debate surrounding the relative merits of carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes heated up today after Connie Hedegaard, leading nominee for EU climate commissioner and the chair of last year’s Copenhagen Summit, rejected calls for the introduction of a carbon levy.

However, she did not rule out the idea of a carbon tax completely, raising the possibility that an EU charge on carbon emissions could be introduced at a later date.

A road made impassable by snow in the Scottish Borders. Photograph: DAVID MOIR/REUTERS

Conservatives are no longer allowed to be wrong. As soon as you point out that someone on the right has made misleading claims, you are accused of pursuing a witch-hunt or behaving like the Inquisition. The delicate sensibilities of rightwingers somehow forbid debate: contradict them, point out their mistakes and falsehoods, and you are immediately charged with persecution.

Skiing in Chamonix, France. Photograph: Gavin Hellier/Corbis

There may be a global freeze on at the moment but Britons who own and let flats and chalets at ski resorts could face a threat to their investments – thanks to a long-term shortage of snow.