A few days ago, a blog called "Not a lot of people know that" published the results of an FOI round-robin, which sought to determine how much the UK was spending on climate research. The results were as follows:
I can...reveal that, during the financial year 2009/10 (the most recent for which the data is available), Research Council spending on “climate change research and training” amounted to £234 million. This analysis was provided by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) on behalf of Research Councils UK (RCUK).
This figure is a minimum - there is also direct funding from government departments and the EU to the universities to add in.
I can't sum up this situation better than the author of the original post:
Let’s be clear about one thing. This sort of money corrupts. It corrupts both individuals and organisations. Climate research funding is agenda driven, rather than result driven; it exists in large part because climate change is perceived as a problem. Research that attempts to prove otherwise is unlikely to be funded at all and even less likely to attract future grants, while scientists who exaggerate the dangers or effects will have no such problems.
It is time to turn the tap off.
Now, what was it you were saying about Heartland?