diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/remove-unused-ansible-remote-temp.yaml b/changelogs/fragments/remove-unused-ansible-remote-temp.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..4243d4838e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/remove-unused-ansible-remote-temp.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+---
+minor_changes:
+- In Ansible-2.4 and above, Ansible passes the temporary directory a module
+  should use to the module.  This is done via a module parameter
+  (_ansible_tmpdir).  An earlier version of this which was also prototyped in
+  Ansible-2.4 development used an environment variable, ANSIBLE_REMOTE_TMP to
+  pass this information to the module instead.  When we switched to using
+  a module parameter, the environment variable was left in by mistake.
+  Ansible-2.7 removes that variable.  Any third party modules which relied on
+  it should use the module parameter instead.
diff --git a/lib/ansible/plugins/action/__init__.py b/lib/ansible/plugins/action/__init__.py
index 9bc27931eb..3460d5be39 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/plugins/action/__init__.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/plugins/action/__init__.py
@@ -321,8 +321,6 @@ class ActionBase(with_metaclass(ABCMeta, object)):
 
         self._connection._shell.tmpdir = rc
 
-        if not become_unprivileged:
-            self._connection._shell.env.update({'ANSIBLE_REMOTE_TMP': self._connection._shell.tmpdir})
         return rc
 
     def _should_remove_tmp_path(self, tmp_path):