I am not saying we won't need more energy ever again, but long-term we can find solutions for that, and short-term (as a stopgap solution) we already know that nuclear power can deliver that power without the global warming. It has other problems, but not ones that threaten our lives as much as global warming does. Of course, in the long run we'll need other forms of energy to take over completely, but even in the short term we can (as in, physical ability, not political will) make this work without reducing our energy needs.
I don't believe there's a causal relation between more pollution and more prosperity.
If you increase supply of energy via nuclear, it will decrease price of fossil fuel energy, and there’s a few billion people ready to go on vacations to Maldives/Tahiti/etc and experience what it’s like to live in detached single family homes with their own personal SUVs.
And there’s no way nuclear power can be developed in a quick enough timeframe, there’s not enough people with expertise or materials.
We need to curtail consumption of fossil fuels yesterday, which means heavily tax it, which means less traveling, less purchasing of plastics, fewer cars, and these are all the opposite for how prosperity is measured today.
We need more than 8%, way more.