But this is one of the classic blunders! "Things are going wrong, so we have to do something! This is something, so we have to do it!"

Well, no, we have to do something that will help. Doing something that makes things worse isn't the answer, and the worse things are, the less we can afford to do so.

"This might help, but also might really mess things up" is not the answer - not in politics, not in economics, and not in climate change.

But I agree with one part of your post. Persuading nations to become poorer voluntarily is not a viable strategy.