Looks like this is a case of the desire to get publicity for the "research" centre overtaking thorough report writing. In this case the poor journalism is on the part of the research centre who produced the slightly iffy report (no, it is not research). The report is here:
[
climate.leeds.ac.uk]
The "half their operating budgets" figure (page 18) supposedly comes from a Scotsman article from last year:
[
www.scotsman.com]
But looking at that article in its current state, there is no mention of this. So perhaps the Scotsman stuck their finger in the air, got caught out by someone within the industry and had to remove that figure? Not before some numpty at this research centre, who should know better than to trust a newspaper article, quoted it as gospel.