This article considers local resilience strategies and climate disaster management response in cities, as well as their impacts in terms of climate adaptation and transformative change. It argues that the soaring use of the concept of resilience is concealing a discrepancy between the ambitions and the solutions for the implementation of better, fairer, and more trustworthy climate adaptation solutions. Cities’ stakeholders are increasingly confronted with trade-offs, while they are often ill-equipped with a lack of facilities, accessible funding, and a limited capacity to address the multiple challenges. Vulnerable populations and poorer groups remain increasingly exposed to climate disasters. The lack of clarity in land-use mechanisms, as well as the multiple obstacles to solutions for climate adaptation, is fueling social conflicts. Multi-stakeholder dialogue, cooperation, local engagement, and a renewed international attention are needed to bring about the transformative change necessary to achieve local resilience, and to generate sufficient trust in the response process to climate disasters.

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