The film was theatrically released by Paramount Pictures on July 28, 2017. The film was screened in the Climate section, a new division, for films featuring climate and the environment. In December 2016, Al Gore announced that a follow-up to An Inconvenient Truth, An Inconvenient Sequel, would open at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. The update has to be incredible and shocking.'

At the time we did the movie, there was Hurricane Katrina now we have extreme weather events every other week. 'Everything in that movie has come to pass. If we are going to make a movie, we want it to have an impact.' Co-producer Laurie David also believed a sequel was needed. 'We have had conversations,' co-producer Lawrence Bender said. When asked during a Reddit 'Ask Me Anything' in 2013 whether there were plans for a follow-up film, An Inconvenient Truth director Davis Guggenheim said, 'I think about it a lot – I think we need one right now.' In 2014, The Hollywood Reporter reported that the producers of the first film were in talks over a possible sequel.

The film follows the efforts made to tackle climate change and Al Gore's attempts to persuade governmental leaders to invest in renewable energy, culminating in the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2016, as well as attempting to de-bunk the de-bunkers of Gore, his film and global warming in general.

An inconvenient truth