This article introduces deliberative inquiry (DI), a practical theory designed to guide the work of deliberative practitioners working in their local communities to better address wicked problems by improving the quality of public discourse. DI reconceptualizes the work of public deliberation as sparking and sustaining a unique form of inquiry suited to addressing wicked problems. DI moves from a linear event‐focused model where deliberation produces refined public opinion and decision outcomes to using deliberative principles to guide a cyclical learning process. DI seeks to improve community decision making by focusing on obstacles to deliberative engagement, deliberative tensions inherent to wicked problems, and resources for collaborative action. Understanding of these elements is refined throughout the 4 tasks of the deliberative cycle.

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Participation in climate governance is a wicked problem. Determining who participates and how is wicked, tricky, and even aggressive. The wicked dimensions of climate change—the difficulties of problem definition and no stopping rule, in particular—require rethinking how to best govern efforts toward adaptation and mitigation. Participatory spaces are not neutral: they are created for multiple purposes, providing opportunities for agency and inclusion but also exclusion and hierarchy. Following the logic of wicked problems that requires attention to paradoxes, I identify several paradoxes of participation in climate change governance that need to be considered in the design of public participation. These paradoxes demand attention rather than erasure if we seek better answers to the fundamental questions of who gets to participate in climate change adaptation and how.

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