28 May 2019This paper aims to present a new explanation for environmental traps, by the presence of endogenous hazard rate. We show that adaptation and mitigation policies have different effects on the occurrence of environmental traps: the former could cause an environmental trap, whereas the latter could help society avoid such a trap, since it decreases the harmful event probability. As a result, we present a new trade-off between adaptation and mitigation policies other than the usual dynamic trade-off highlighted in many studies, which is crucial for developing countries. Contrary to the literature, when the economy is in a trap, the economy at the high environmental quality equilibrium tends to be more conservative for resource exploitation than the low environmental quality equilibrium economy, which implies a heterogeneous reaction against the endogenous hazard rate.