The research field on the earth environment changes related to human-nature interaction is developing rapidly. Some different concepts are addressed and evolved during the developing course of this research theme. Firstly, the concept of climate change was addressed in the early 20th century, and then, the concepts of global change, global environmental change and earth system science were developed in different fields and research groups. In general, these concepts have all focused on this largest issue in the modern society from different angles of review. Also, thy have different background, crossed fields, special research approaches. Based on an analysis of the history of this environmental issue and research activities, the significations of the four concepts are reviewed and compared. Global change research focuses on the earth environmental changes or the regional environmental changes that associate with global environment, which are driven by nature or human factors and directly or potentially influence the current or the future human life and development. Generally, global change can be used to cover and refer all the issues of this area. The research contents of climate change and global environmental change are generally included in global change studies. Climate change and global environmental change have special focuses with each other, and also there are some common parts for the two concepts. Climate change especially focus on the nature factors as a scientific concept, but recently, it is also widely used in the fields of international argument and climate policy as a public issue. Global environment change is often used in the area of active and passive human factors in the changes, and in some regions and groups, it is also referred to the general changes. Earth system science is an important theory, methods and resolution for the global change studies with a systematic thought.