1 Paper presented at the ECPR General Conference, Bordeaux, 4-7 September 2013 Panel ‘Climate governance: a leadership perspective’ First draft, please do not cite without permission of the authors Climate adaptation leadership between small adjustments and transformative change. The case of the Dutch Delta Program Catrien Termeer (1) , Geert Teisman (2), Sibout Nooteboom (3) and Ytsen Deelstra (4) (1)Wageningen University, The Netherlands; (2) Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands; (3) Erasmus University Rotterdam and the Netherlands Commission for Environmental Assessment; (4) Royal HaskoningDHV, the Netherlands 1.Introduction Adaptation to climate change is a relatively new topic on policy agendas throughout the world. Reinforced by the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC, 2007), there is increasing recognition of the need for society to adapt to the (projected) impacts of climate change. Societies are facing three key challenges: 1) developing and implementing infrastructural adjustments, such as enhancing dykes or creating water storage capacity; 2) enhancing broader processes of societal change, such as agricultural transitions or new spatial planning concepts; 3) increasing the adaptive capacity of society to deal with unexpected and unpredictable future changes climate change and vulnerabilities. Climate change is not only a technical issue but above all a demanding matter of governance. Governance of adaptation will face the usual difficulties, barriers, and opportunities of tackling complex problems, such as changing political and societal agendas, power-play, conflicting interests, the need for lengthy negotiations, resistance from key groups, and windows of opportunity. On top of that, adaptation to climate change poses some specific, particularly demanding governance challenges (Davoudi er al 2009; Haug et al 2009; Jordan et al 2010; Buuren et al 2010; Termeer et al. 2012). First, the governance system that deals with consequences of climate change is possibly more fragmented than in other policy domains. Climate adaptation affects a variety of interconnected physical and social systems domains such as water management, spatial planning, infrastructure, agriculture, forestry, energy supply, nature, health, and industry (Tompkins & Adger, 2005). These domains are all related to different policy sectors, administrative levels, and policy systems, which, in turn, are characterized by formal and informal rules, ambitions, problem-framing, and resources (Termeer et al, 2011; Edelenbos and Teisman, 2013). Second, climate adaptation has to be achieved in domains where climate is not a primary and hot issue. Therefore, practices of adaptation to climate change emerge in a variety of governance systems in which sets of actors act and interact around their own core-issues like flood protection, water supply and urban development. Third, climate change faces deep uncertainties. The many actors involved bring with them a variety of perceptions about the nature and scale of risks and the effectiveness of climate adaptation. While those engaged in climate research often urge for an abrupt, climate goal oriented and controlled processes of adaptation, aiming to prevent a further catastrophic event, actors in the variety of governance systems are much more in favour of their own developments, mainly prepared to accept small adjustments to the desires of climate adaptation. The fourth challenge is the long term character of the phenomenon (Burton et al 2007). Decisions need to be taken now to be prepared for a changing future, but this means incurring costs now while the benefits will only materialize in the long term, if at all (Dewulf and Termeer, 2013). Short-term interventions based on a long-term vision demand a specific commitment by taxpayers, politicians or residents.