With the growing threat of climatic changes, and lack of a coherent federal climate change response strategy, several states have taken a lead in responding to climate change risks. .  Sub-national policies for climate change adaptation are considered increasingly relevant because unlike mitigation, where a national level policy is critical for effective stabilization of national greenhouse emissions, adaptation strategies can be effectively implemented at the local and regional levels, even in the absence of a federal mandate. Support for adaptation actions stems from the realization that the inertia of climatic changes due to the accumulation of greenhouse gasses emitted in the past is projected to result in significant changes in the coming decades irrespective of the effects of emissions reductions. From a pure rational policy perspective, states that face the most risks from climate change impacts are likely to enact proactive and anticipatory adaptation policies to safeguard their citizens. However, there is contradictory evidence in the field of disasters research that suggests otherwise. States and local governments have often failed to enact policies that are likely to limit future losses from extreme natural events resulting in increased losses of lives and properties. Therefore with increasing efforts to integrate adaptation strategies within the overall climate change response, it is important to examine the role of climate change risks and other factors that are likely to influence the extent of adaptation response. This study is one of the first such efforts to undertake this analysis using an innovative risk-stress-capacity framework. This framework provides a useful analytical structure to compare and contrast the effects of a number of social, economic, and political constraints that influence adoption of climate change adaptation policies at the sub-national level. This article analyzes the potential benefits of adaptation strategies contained in state climate change mitigation and adaptation plans adopted till date. Relevance of these strategies is evaluated with respect to actual climate change risks faced by the respective states. Negative binomial regression analysis was used to examine the influence of climate change risks, greenhouse gas emissions, (stress) and civic capacity on state adaptation policies while controlling for political ideology. This study provides empirical evidence to confirm that climate change adaptation actions are not isolated from other decisions, but occurs in the context of demographic, socio-economic, and political context. There is evidence of disconnect between the actual risks from climate change and adaptation actions. While higher civic capacity has a positive influence on state adaptation strategies, higher greenhouse emissions negatively influence adoption of such policies.