During the two week UN moderated Conference on Climate Change in Bali, Japan joined in an alliance with Canada and the United States to stymie an agreement that would move beyond vagaries to clear responsibilities. The Yomiuri Shinbum described Japan's role as a “bit-player”, and a “mediator”. But this language (taken from the mouth of Japanese Environment Minister Ichiro Kamoshita) obscures Japan's role (with Canada) in backing the U.S. position during the general meetings, as well as in speaking for that position in some of the meetings the U.S. could not attend because it has not signed the Kyoto Protocol (from the Clinton to Bush administrations). These actions were to prevent an agreement holding only advanced industrial nations to stringent emissions reductions. The end result was a general agreement, the Bali Action Plan, that lacked any specific obligations on the part of the world's nations, but relied instead on generalities like “[r]ecognizing deep cuts in emissions will be required” and “[e]nhanced action on technology development and transfer”, and set topics for the next meeting in 2009. The former quote suited the position of China and India, two nations with rapidly increasing greenhouse gas emissions but without the regulatory stringency of other advanced industrial nations. China, the U.S. and India have the highest emission rates worldwide. However China and India pushed for specific agreements on green technology transfers that was opposed vehemently by the United States. In 2006 China had the 4th highest GDP and India the 13th, but they did not commit themselves to making green technology transfers.

In the general meetings, the only mechanism of climate change reduction that received the consensus of all the major emitters at the general conference was carbon credits, where countries that can afford to pollute pay others to reduce carbon emissions for them (which often means preserving forests as carbon offsets). As suggested by Michael Kinsley in Time magazine, the carbon credits can be, “uncharitably compared […] to the indulgences sold by the medieval Catholic Church” allowing those that can afford it to continue polluting and even increase their emissions. This suggests that carbon credits are a much less effective means of greenhouse gas reduction than other mechanisms. And as first expressed in The Nation by Daphne Wysham, carbon credit trading perpetuates the divide between wealthy and developing nations. A more helpful solution, she writes, is providing, “money for countries and workers within those countries to transition toward clean technologies and to help them build green economies.” As of 2006, Japan was purchasing 38% of the available carbon credits, and recently made a deal with Hungary to buy more. Britain buys the next highest amount, at 15%.

On the last day, Japan and Canada did finally accept a separate agreement with the 36 other ratifiers of the Kyoto Protocol that created carbon emission reduction targets of 25% to 40% by 2020, an important agreement that finally brought Japan into the consensus of the majority of those at the Conference, rather than standing with the U.S. outside of it.