As China is the world's largest energy consumer and carbon dioxide emitter, the future trajectory of its carbon emissions will play a crucial part in global mitigation plans. However, China's National Assessment Reports on Climate Change, issued in 2007 and 2011, are limited in scope and not widely disseminated or cited. These shortcomings must be rectified before the next report is released this year.

Compared with the assessment reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), China's have had scarcely any impact. The IPCC report is cited thousands of times in United Nations official documents, whereas China's seem to be barely mentioned even in Chinese-government documents.

In our view, this low impact reflects the general lack of public interest in climate change in China, the paucity of media coverage and scholarly study, and the insufficient efforts by central and local government to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions.

China's next assessment report needs to be more widely promoted, include more high-quality research results, and objectively evaluate current policies to tackle climate change in the country. China should learn from the IPCC and open the way to international collaboration in preparing and promoting the country's assessment reports.