It wasn't too difficult to stay ahead of the pollution curve in the late game as long as you didn't have a war. But there was one memorable game where I had a massive nuclear exchange with Gandhi. Created too much pollution. The world become a wasteland because I couldn't clean it up in time. And the AI didn't clean anything on its own, iirc. I won the game, but it was such a Pyrrhic victory.
This was probably 29 years ago. Playing obsessively on my old Mac LC. Still remember it because it was the saddest game session I've ever had. I won, but there wasn't much left at the end. Broken cities and the earth was dead.
Don't remember if there was nuclear winter as well.
Global warming resulted from not cleaning up pollution. Then the tiles would change irreversibly.
Edit: wow, it spawned an entire subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/theeternalwar/
But today I learned I've never really played Civ