Building on the growing body of literature on barriers to adaptation to climate change, this chapter focuses on ‘lock-ins’ as a particular conceptual approach to understanding path dependencies and rigidities in policy processes with a particular relevance to the field. The central research questions are, first, how can lock-ins be conceptualised, what indicators might identify them, and how can they be detected and described? Second, we seek to understand the emergence of lock-ins in climate adaptation policies by reference to central mechanisms originating from: (1) knowledge, discourses, and expertise; (2) physical infrastructures; (3) institutions and past policy tools; and (4) actors and their respective mental frames. Third, in cases where they are considered harmful, how can lock-ins be overcome or abated? It is the central thrust of this chapter to advance an in-depth and conceptually rich explanatory approach to climate adaptation governance and its obstacles. Empirical material, including evidence from pre-existing studies, will support the argumentation essentially by way of illustration.