Résumé
In this study, we deal with tropical environmental issues by having recourse to the overlapping generations model of growth. First, our purpose is to recognize that the recovery process of nature is finite and vanishes beyond a critical threshold of damage. Considering the potential irreversibility of pollution implies that the development process can drive the polluting economy to a poverty trap. Moreover, the theorical explanations of the environmental Kuznets curve are seriously challenged since the private agents investment in abatement fails to promote sustainable growth. Then, we show that regulating pollution with permits is an effective policy, provided that some precise rules concerning the choice of the global quota on emissions are respected, from the view point of its ability to protect the economy against the convergence toward a poverty trap. Once we have set conditions excluding traps, we also prove that environmental policy does not necessarily mean a slackening in growth. Its reinforcement can even produce a double dividend. Finally, we address the issue of the definition of the emission quota. We assume that the economy's commitment in pollution control goes through the setting of an exogenous quota. When the permits system is too latitudinarian, it is possible to exceed the rigidity imposed by the quota and to achieve the social optimum by implementing a policy consisting in the segmentation of the permits market.