Surely the absurdity of someone like you telling the world’s poor that they ought to stay poor doesn’t escape you?
Keep the dialogue civil.
It turns out that industrializing a society creates a lot of pollution. That pollution, as we've recently found out, is responsible for "the massive humanitarian crises and greater suffering" we are going to experience as impoverished nations continue to industrialize (ie. get lifted out of poverty).
See: IPCC
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
The solution to pollution is more economic development, not less. This becomes even more true once demographic transition effects (like declining birth rates) start to kick in.
EKC works with pollutants that have short term, acute consequences. Think sulfates, nitrates, carbon monoxide, etc.
EKC has not been proven true with pollutants whose effects are less concentrated and whose effects take longer to realize (CH4, CO2, etc). The catastrophes I'm referring to have little to do with the paper you cited.