Reading material from Danny, for Reading Sharing on Sat.

[Danny Li]

[1]: Planes cause rise in CO2 targets

The UK's official climate change advisers have warned that households and businesses will have to cut even more emissions than previously planned - up to 90% by 2050 - so the aviation sector can continue to grow.

Aviation is perpetually contentious in debates on climate change. The government says it wants people to be able to fly on holiday. But there's currently no technology that can radically cut emissions from planes.

The Climate Change Committee spells out the implications of that tension. The rest of the economy, it says, may have to cut its emissions 90% by 2050, so people can carry on flying in the meantime. The current target for the whole economy is 80%.

Green groups immediately demanded that the government should scrap its plans to expand Heathrow and other airports.

The Committee says aviation is a global problem, so it needs to be included in any deal in the coming climate change talks at the UN. Emissions from aviation in rich countries should be capped, then forced to return to 2005 levels, it says. Flying in poor countries should be allowed to grow for a while.

The government says it already supports the target of getting aviation emissions down to 2005 levels. But critics doubt ministers' plans for emissions to fall whilst aviation grows.

Roger Harrabin, BBC News

[2]: Mary Queen of Scots' last letter

The last letter written by Mary Queen of Scots hours before her execution has gone on public display in Edinburgh this week. It is on show for just seven days and could then be locked away for a generation to prevent it from being damaged.

Mary's life was a dizzying mix of romance and revenge. She was Queen of Scots, briefly Queen of France and aspired to be Queen of England too. She was sentenced to death for plotting against her cousin Queen Elizabeth. She wrote - in French - a final letter to the King of France:

Royal brother, having by God's will for my sins, I think, thrown myself into the power of the Queen my cousin, I have finally been condemned to death by her and her estates. Tonight, after dinner, I have been advised of my sentence. I am to be executed like a criminal at eight in the morning.

Six hours later Mary was beheaded. The Director of Collections at the National Library of Scotland, Kate Newton, says her last letter was remarkable:

Kate Newton: 'If you look at the handwriting it seems very composed, very calm. She goes through reasserting her Catholic faith, reasserting her right to the English crown, but she's also looking at her servants and making arrangements for them to have their wages paid after her execution, so it's really extraordinary that she was able to think about that, as well as everything else, in view of her impending execution only a few hours later.'

The Mary Queen of Scots' letter is in a glass case, it's about A4 size. The interesting thing is that it's quite gloomy in the room because of the fear that too much light could cause the ink on the letter to fade away.

Mary was 45 when she died but her line, like her letter, survived. The Stuarts endured for another hundred years.

Colin Blane, BBC News, Edinburgh

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