[2] The GCC was dissolved in 2001 after membership declined in the face of improved understanding of the role of greenhouse gases in climate change and of public criticism.

It declared that its primary objective had been achieved: U.S. President George W. Bush withdrew the U.S., which alone accounted for nearly a quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, from the Kyoto Protocol process through the Senate voting to not ratify the treaty.

Industry sectors represented included: aluminium, paper, transportation, power generation, petroleum, chemical, and small businesses.

[39][40] It was the most prominent industry advocate in international climate negotiations,[41] and led a campaign opposed to policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

[42] The GCC was one of the most powerful non-governmental organizations representing business interests in climate policy, according to Kal Raustiala, professor at the UCLA School of Law.

Policy positions advocated by the coalition included denial of anthropogenic climate change, emphasizing the uncertainty in climatology, advocating for additional research, highlighting the benefits and downplaying the risks of climate change, stressing the priority of economic development, defending national sovereignty, and opposition to the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

[45] GCC sent 30 attendees to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro,[1] where it lobbied to keep targets and timetables out of the Framework Convention on Climate Change.

[46] In December, 1992 GCC's executive director wrote in a letter to The New York Times: "...there is considerable debate on whether or not man-made greenhouse gases (produced primarily by burning fossil fuels) are triggering a dangerous 'global warming' trend.

"[47] In 1992 GCC distributed a half-hour video entitled The Greening of Planet Earth, to hundreds of journalists, the White House, and several Middle Eastern oil-producing countries, which suggested that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide could boost crop yields and solve world hunger.

[48][49] In 1993, after then US president Bill Clinton pledged "to reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases to their 1990 levels by the year 2000," GCC's executive director said it "could jeopardize the economic health of the nation.

The draft document was disclosed in a 2007 lawsuit filed by the auto industry against California's efforts to regulate automotive greenhouse gas emissions.

[62][63] According to The New York Times, the primer demonstrated that "even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

[69] GCC was the main industry group in the United States opposed to the Kyoto Protocol,[25] which committed signatories to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

[25][80][81] GCC lobbying was key to the July, 1997 unanimous passage in the United States Senate of the Byrd–Hagel Resolution, which reflected the coalition's position that restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions must include developing countries.

[1][82] GCC's chairman told a US congressional committee that mandatory greenhouse gas emissions limits were: "an unjustified rush to judgement.

[87] "Abandonment of the Global Climate Coalition by leading companies is partly in response to the mounting evidence that the world is indeed getting warmer," according to environmentalist Lester R.

[88] In 1998, Green Party delegates to the European Parliament introduced an unsuccessful proposal that the World Meteorological Organization name hurricanes after GCC members.

Brown called the restructuring "a thinly veiled effort to conceal the real issue – the loss of so many key corporate members.

[96] GCC said on its website that its mission had been successfully achieved, writing "At this point, both Congress and the Administration agree that the U.S. should not accept the mandatory cuts in emissions required by the protocol.

[97][98] Environmentalist Bill McKibben said that, by promoting doubt about the science, "throughout the 1990s, even as other nations took action, the fossil fuel industry's Global Climate Coalition managed to make American journalists treat the accelerating warming as a he-said-she-said story.