Background: There is a growing body of literature that examines the role of local governments in addressing climate change vis-à-vis mitigation and adaptation. Although it appears that climate change mitigation strategies -in particular those addressing energy issues -are being adopted by a large majority of local governments, this cannot be said of climate change adaptation. This paper explores the uptake of these two types of climate change policy by local governments in the Netherlands. The central research question is: What lessons can be drawn from comparing the adoption and implementation of local climate change mitigation policies with local climate change adaptation policies in the Netherlands? Our paper contributes to the body of literature on climate change policy implementation, drawing particular attention to the ongoing debate on the institutional dimension of the adaptation-mitigation dichotomy. Methods: A comparative case study research design was chosen to study the adoption and implementation of climate change (i) mitigation and (ii) adaptation policies by local governments in the Netherlands during the period 1998 to 2013. The data involved 89 expert interviews and secondary data sources from four research projects conducted by the present authors on local climate change policy implementation.Results: Most Dutch municipalities have local climate change policies that address mitigation. Local governments pay relatively little attention to adaptation. The difference is mostly due to the take-up of central government-led policy support schemes aimed at the vertical integration of climate change mitigation policies. Moreover, mitigation is typically framed as an 'energy' issue whereas adaptation is framed as a 'water' issue. This has far-reaching consequences. Climate change adaptation has never been prioritized, nor has it been supported with properly funded policy support schemes.Conclusions: In the realm of local climate change policies, adaptation is still considered an 'add-on' to climate change mitigation policy. Moreover, adoption and implementation of both adaptation and mitigation suffers from institutional inertia in Dutch local policy practice.

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Integrating policy on climate change adaptation into civil protection is explored through studies of extreme weather management at the national level in Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands, and through local case studies of the three coastal cities of Bergen, Malmo änd Rotterdam. The research issues addressed have been the extent to which, and in what form, climate change adaptation policy has been integrated into civil protection, how the observed policy integration can be explained and how such integration can be improved. Different degrees of policy integration may stem from perceived vulnerabilities and varying needs for renewed legitimacy within the civil protection system following the end of the Cold War. A set of socio-historic characteristics of the "environment" and "civil protection" policy domains illuminate conditions for an improved outcome of the policy integration process.

Moving towards a more sustainable adaptation process requires closer integration of policies related to the environment. An important actor in this is the local government. This paper examines to what extend adaptation is currently being integrated into Dutch local policies, and what the role is of a municipality's size, risk and experience in the encountered manifestations of adaptation. First, it was determined that adaptations taking place only anticipate currently perceivable weather extremes -mostly increasing precipitation. Second, it was determined that the realisation of further adaptations is hindered by a strongly sectoral divided reality. Adaptation is now heavily dominated by the water department, while spatial planning and the environment are only limitedly involved. Finally, it was observed that the contextual factor size proved to most important for horizontal policy integration, whereas the contextual factor extreme-weather experience was the most definite for the realisation of adaptations. We conclude that a more sustainable adaptation should first tackle the sectoral divides which requires administrative efforts, for example, professional training. These would preferably be initiated from a vertical direction.

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