WASHINGTON - U.S. drivers would pay a 50-cent tax on each gallon of gasoline they pump to encourage less fuel use and cut greenhouse gas emissions, under draft legislation to fight global warming released on Thursday. "In order or reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make the planet safe and healthy for future generations it will take a significant investment from all of us," said Rep. John Dingell, the powerful chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "A fee on carbon emissions requires a tithe from all citizens and industries, but no one entity will be unfairly leveled with a devastating burden," Dingell said about his climate change proposal.

OSLO- A record melt of Arctic summer sea ice this month may be a sign that global warming is reaching a critical trigger point that could accelerate the northern thaw, some scientists say. "The reason so much (of the Arctic ice) went suddenly is that it is hitting a tipping point that we have been warning about for the past few years," James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told Reuters. The Arctic summer sea ice shrank by more than 20 percent below the previous 2005 record low in mid-September to 4.13 million sq km (1.6 million sq miles), according to a 30-year satellite record. It has now frozen out to 4.2 million sq km.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Lorenzo was downgraded to a tropical storm over Mexico on Friday hours after it swept ashore as a Category 1 hurricane, dumping heavy rain on the already waterlogged state of Veracruz.  Lorenzo lost force after it made landfall near the Gulf of Mexico port city of Tuxpan, and its maximum wind speed had dropped to 65 mph (100 kph) by 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.  The storm was not seen affecting Mexico's oil production but around 100,000 people living between Tuxpan and the town of Nautla further south were evacuated to storm shelters.

WASHINGTON - U.S. President George W. Bush kicks off the second day of a conference on global warming on Friday under pressure from the world's major economies to accept binding limits on emissions of greenhouse gases.  Bush called the meeting as a precursor to United Nations talks in Bali in December, which will aim to launch a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that set limits on industrial nations' emissions. Environmentalists said the conference produced nothing new and was an attempt to circumvent U.N. efforts on climate change, a charge Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denied.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Lorenzo formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday and headed for the Mexican coast but was unlikely to affect oil production in the area.

Lorenzo will probably hit the coastline on Friday in the state of Veracruz. It had wind speeds of 60 mph (95 kph) and showed no sign of reaching hurricane strength.

"No significant change in strength is forecast during the next 24 hours" the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

LONG BEACH, California (Reuters) - Two of the nation's biggest power companies are teaming up with a solar start-up to create one of the world's largest solar power projects, which they say could make electricity at a competitive price.

PG&E Corp, FPL Corp and solar thermal power generator Ausra Inc unveiled plans on Thursday for utility-scale solar plants which they claim will produce electricity at a price comparable with conventional fossil-fuel power plants.

“Everything has changed dramatically in the watershed we observed,” reports Geography professor Scott Lamoureux, the leader of an International Polar Year project announced yesterday in Nunavut by Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl. “It’s something we’d envisioned for the future – but to see it happening now is quite remarkable.”