The audience gasped out loud at the Bali climate change conference last month when James Connaughton, leader of the U.S. delegation, had the chutzpah to declare “We are leading and we will continue to lead but that requires the rest of the world to fall in line and follow.”

As Daily Kos diarist “gmoke” pointed out yesterday, when it comes to fuel efficiency, we’re not only not leading, we’re trailing behind even China:

The present fuel economy standards in the EU and Japan are 40 mpg with the EU shooting for 48.9 mpg for new passenger vehicles by as early as 2012. Within the next year, the average fuel economy for Chinese passenger vehicles will surpass 35 mpg, the 2020 goal for the USA.

Gmoke notes what a century of leadership from the Big Three has delivered:

1908 Ford Model T: 25 MPG
2004 EPA Average All Cars: 21 MPG

At this rate, in another hundred years, we’ll be”oh, forget it.