Scientists and policy makers hoping to adopt a new climate change treaty at this December’s United Nations’ meeting in Copenhagen might have reason to worry about achieving an international accord: A major player, India, home to a sixth of the world’s population, may not be on board with limiting its greenhouse emissions.

"If the question is whether India will take on binding emission reduction commitments, the answer is no. It is morally wrong for us to agree to reduce when 40 percent of Indians do not have access to electricity," said an Indian delegate to the recently concluded U.N. climate conference in Bonn, Germany, according to the Washington Post.

Tata Motors’ Nano, billed as the world’s cheapest (new) car, with base models selling for about $2,000 (or 100,000 rupees) is expected to sell like hot cakes when the company starts taking orders for it on April 9.

The no-frills Nano has a two-cylinder engine mounted in the rear (like the classic Volkswagen Beetle), giving it a top speed of 65 miles (105 kilometers) per hour. The base model comes sans air conditioning and power windows, but those amenities are available in deluxe models.

The Nano is aptly named as it stretches just a bit over 10 feet (3 meters) long, making it about four feet (1.2 meters) shorter than the 2008 Ford Focus hatchback, a compact car by U.S. standards. The ride weighs in at just 1,300 pounds (660 kilograms), about half of a Focus hatchback. This light weight partially explains the Nano’s low cost because fewer raw materials were needed to make it, according to the Chicago Tribune. A big bonus: Lightness also gives the Nano a very fuel-efficient 55 miles per gallon (24 kilometers per liter) of gasoline, Tata Motors says.

Yes, it's true. You can run a car on nothing but air, compressed air that is. Rather than burning gasoline to create the gases that drive a piston up and down (and provide motive to your motor), some automakers plan to use air compressed to around 4,500 pounds-per-square-inch instead. After all, pressurized air is just as good at driving a piston up or down—and potentially cheaper.

Such cars are not as fast as regular ones or anywhere near as powerful, but a tank of compressed air is enough to travel at least 60 miles, which is more than most Americans drive in a day. And as long as you don't need to go faster than 35 miles-per-hour, you won't need to burn any other fuel—meaning all that the only thing that comes out of the tailpipe is the same air that went into the engine.

Motor Development International (MDI) in Luxembourg has started working with Indian industrial conglomerate Tata to turn that company's forthcoming Nano car--the world's cheapest at roughly $2,000--into a compressed air vehicle. MDI has also paired with Zero Pollution Motors in New Paltz, N.Y., to make a similar vehicle available to U.S. consumers by 2010 , assuming all goes according to plan, at a price tag of around $18,000.