In his article in the Telegraph today (18th April 2015), Mr Critchlow claims that the 'keep it in the ground' campaign, which aims to persuade mankind to keep fossil fuel reserves in the ground to limit carbon emissions and keep global warming below 2 degrees, will sentence many people in developing countries to avoidable levels of poverty and deprivation. His argument, however, is one based on taking a blinkered view of the possibilities. His premise is that fossil fuels drive economic wealth which lifts developing countries out of poverty.
The mistake he makes is to ignore the possibilities for economic success, under a wider definition of success than wealth creation, in a scenario where fossil fuels are phased out and renewables are phased in. This will happen eventually anyway, through fossil fuels becoming uneconomic versus renewable alternatives, in the long run. However, even if we increasingly introduce measures, such as carbon taxation or carbon budgets (which some countries already have done), then the 'economic damage leading to longer-lasting poverty' criticism such as that espoused by Mr Critchlow doesn't hold water.
This is because there is an easy counter to his argument. Poverty is not the result of lack of economic growth; it is the result of failure to provide a basic safety-net (providing basic human needs for security, water, food and shelter, to people - individuals or entire countries - at the bottom end of the global society). Poverty can be easily addressed - this most heinous of indictments on the failure of humanity can be solved, by building the right kinds of safety nets in all countries and as a global standard.
There is a genuine concern about the effects of achieving a sustainable future on the total economic equilibria and the impacts of this on total wealth, health and happiness of the global population. The Rethinking Economics movement is an example of a response to this - to encourage people to question the prevailing mantra of "economic growth is the answer" or an equally puerile manta of "future generations will be richer and therefore more able to tackle climate change, so do the least we can now". When we recognise we need to operate within ecological and other limits on a finite planet, this might well make traditional economic analyses at best questionable and at worst highly dangerous as bases for global and national policy development (eg on fossil fuels and carbon taxes).
We might well find the answers to our global problems in a return to one of the first principle definitions of Economics as a subject: The analysis of the allocation of scarce resources. A greater focus on how we allocate those resources, rather than just on how we create more of them, might be a better response than to ignore planetary limits or failing to effectively challenge the "drill, baby, drill" culture of the fossil fuel industry.