Adaptation to climate change is about planning for the future while responding to current pressures and challenges. Adaptation scientists are increasingly using future visioning exercises embedded in co-production and co-development techniques to assist stakeholders in imagining futures in a changing climate. Even if these exercises are growing in popularity, surprisingly little scrutiny has been placed on understanding the fundamental assumptions and choices in scenario approaches, timeframes, scales, or methods, and whether they result in meaningful changes in how adaptation is being thought about. Here, we unpack key insights and experiences across 62 case studies that specifically report on using future visioning exercises to engage stakeholders in climate change adaptation. We focus on three key areas: 1) Stakeholder diversity and scales; 2) Tools, methods, and data, and 3) Practical constraints, enablers, and outcomes. Our results show that most studies focus on the regional scale (n = 32; 52%), involve mainly formal decision makers and employ vast array of different methods, tools, and data. Interestingly, most exercises adopt either predictive (what will happen) and explorative (what could happen) scenarios while only a fraction use the more normative (what should happen) scenarios that could enable more transformative thinking. Reported positive outcomes include demonstrated increases in climate change literacy and support for climate change adaptation planning. Unintended and unexpected outcomes include increased anxiety in cases where introduced timeframes go beyond an individual’s expected life span and decreased perceived necessity for undertaking adaptation at all. Key agreed factors that underpin co-production and equal representation, such as gender, age, and diversity, are not well reported, and most case studies do not use reflective processes to harness participant feedback that could enable more robust methodology development. This is a missed opportunity in developing a more fundamental understanding of how these exercises can effectively shift individual and collective mindsets and advance the inclusion of different viewpoints as a pathway for more equitable and just climate adaptation.

适应气候变化是在应对当前压力和挑战的同时规划未来。适应科学家越来越多地使用嵌入在联合生产和联合开发技术中的未来愿景练习来帮助利益相关者在不断变化的气候中想象未来。即使这些练习越来越受欢迎，令人惊讶的是，在理解情景方法、时间框架、规模或方法中的基本假设和选择，以及它们是否会导致对适应性的思考方式产生有意义的变化时，几乎没有受到审查。在这里，我们在 62 个案例研究中揭示了关键见解和经验，这些案例研究专门报告了使用未来的愿景练习来让利益相关者参与气候变化适应。我们专注于三个关键领域：1）利益相关者的多样性和规模；2) 工具、方法和数据，以及 3) 实际约束、促成因素和结果。我们的结果表明，大多数研究都集中在区域范围内（n = 32；52%），主要涉及正式的决策者，并采用大量不同的方法、工具和数据。有趣的是，大多数练习都采用预测（将会发生什么）和探索性（可能发生什么）场景，而只有一小部分使用更规范的（应该发生什么）) 可以实现更具变革性思维的场景。报告的积极成果包括气候变化知识的增加和对气候变化适应规划的支持。意外和意想不到的结果包括在引入的时间框架超出个人预期寿命的情况下增加焦虑，以及完全降低进行适应的感知必要性。支持共同制作和平等代表的关键商定因素，如性别、年龄和多样性，没有得到很好的报道，大多数案例研究没有使用反思过程来利用参与者的反馈，从而实现更稳健的方法论开发。