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This paper considers community‐based adaptation (CBA) to climate change and its relationship to the theory and practice of participatory development. It is argued that CBA needs to recognise the considered experience of participatory development to date, particularly in relation to local involvement in project planning and implementation, as well as acknowledging the specific challenges raised by climate change. Without attention to risks and uncertainty, political structures and institutions, the necessarily multi‐level nature of adaptation policy and programming, and the links between mitigation and adaptation politics and practice, outcomes of CBA interventions are unlikely to support pro‐poor development. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.