近年來氣候變遷議題越來越受重視，國際社會對此一議題也積極對應。自1992年簽訂氣候變化綱要公約後，將氣候變遷議題區分為氣候變遷調適及氣候變遷減緩兩部分來處理。由於氣候變遷議題屬於環境議題，在探討氣候變遷規範議題時，必須理解環境規範的構成由科學現象或證據做為建立規範的基礎，所以環境規範與相關的環境科學現象及研究有著密不可分的關係。為了有效的因應科學發現做成相呼應的規範，軟法及硬法的選用成為國際社會制定國際環境法規範時的一種特殊現象。基於上述說明，檢視氣候變遷調適會發現，氣候變遷調適已從原本模糊不被關注，轉而受到越來越多關注及討論，而在這過程中軟法文件使得氣候變遷調適的輪廓越來越清晰。透過檢視歷屆締約國大會重要軟法文件，並將其與氣候變化綱要公約約文對照，會發現氣候變遷調適的確切形式已逐漸形成，而部分以軟法形成的氣候變遷調適結論應以硬法呈現，享有硬法的好處，以利氣候變調適進一步落實。

In recent years, the Climate Change issue attracts the world's attention and the international society has acted positive toward it. Since the UNFCCC signed in 1992, strategies in response to Climate Change have been divided into two parts-climate change adaptation and climate change mitigation. The development pace of these strategies are much different from each other. This article aims to explore the development of climate change adaptation in int'l legal instruments and tries to draw up a better ''next step.'' In order to make the related regulations response effectively to the discovery of science facts, which are uncertain most of the time, the international society lays out int'l environmental law with both soft law and hard law. Likewise, it is clear that climate change adaptation tries to overcome the problem of the uncertainty of science facts through series of soft law documents. In order to implement the climate change adaptation well, this article argues that it is a good time and the int'l society ought to make some of the essential adaptation legal instruments, especially Cancun Adaptation Framework, into hard law.