Three phrases of the quantitative study of climate-vegetation classification and their characteristics are presented based on the review of advance in climate-vegetation interaction, a key issue of "global change and terrestrial ecosystems (GCTE)" which is the core project of International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP): (ⅰ) characterized by the correlation between natural vegetation types and climate; (ⅱ) characterized by climatic indices which have obviously been restricted to plant ecophysiology; (ⅲ) characterized by coupling both structure and function of vegetation. Thus, the prospective of climate-vegetation classification for global change study in China was proposed, especially the study coupling climate-vegetation classification models with atmospheric general circulation models (GCMs) was emphasized.