Adaptive Leadership as a Facilitator of Public Engagement on Environmental Sustainability Issues

At the time of writing, state governments have rapidly escalated their response to the problem of climate change. The governors and state legislatures are developing a wide variety of bills and executive orders to address different aspects of the issue. This wave of policy development builds upon an expert-based, bureaucracy- and business- focused wave of actions that took place in the state capitals during the late 1990s and into this century. This paper reflects upon a future in which active citizen participation becomes a more integral component of addressing climate change. Using the adaptive leadership philosophy of Ronald Heifetz, this paper shows the beginnings of shared responsibilities for climate change policy implementation between state governments and their citizens, and discusses Heifetz's ideas as a basis for even greater citizen participation on this issue.