Abstract: Worldwide concern about possible climate change resulting from increasing concen trations of greenhouse gases has led governments and researchers to consider int ernational action to address the issue, and the regional response to the climate change has become the priority field of global environmental change in China Researchers have gradually gained a common understanding about the combining of global and regional issues: the global environmental change issues could not be solv ed unless it is supported by regional studies, and on the other hand, the region al studies should necessarily incarnate the global issues This paper i ntroduced the essential methods of assessing regional response to climate change , especially the regional vulnerability and adaptation assessment method that ha s been widely employed in IPCC’s assessment reports The major climate scenario s in the next fifty years in China were summarized on the basis of the related l iterature Then the author assessed the recent research --how the global envi ronmental change impacts the regional development, including natural ecosystem, water resource shortage, desertification problems and agriculture industry devel opment Further research was pointed out, however, to strengthen future assessm ent and to reduce uncertainties in order to assure that sufficient information is available for policymaking about responses to possible consequences of climate.

Key words: assessment, global environmental change, potent ial impacts, regional development