Sure, climate change will have a worse effect on poorer countries. But what's going to lead to greater suffering: climate change in the next few decades to a century or 10-15 years lower average life expectancy in India? And not only a shorter life - a worse quality of life too.
The US has a GDP of $65k per capita. India has $2.1k per capita. If we took the US GDP, add India's GDP and then divide the sum by the sum of India's and US's populations we get a GDP per capita of $14.3k. That would be a drop of almost 80% for the average American. You can imagine what they would lose in their quality of life over that.
I believe that the potential number of jobs created on behalf of climate change mitigation would increase wages and income for millions of people and minimize poverty, and figures are often cited for renewables alone showing just this. What we need is a massive form of economic conversion (redefined as decarbonization) on a planet wide scale, and this requires close cooperation between existing companies in the energy extraction sector and the governments of every nation. I believe this project could also force competing nations to work together and promote peaceful relations and encourage new growth and trade. It requires changing hearts and minds.
