They don't need to come anywhere near US levels of per capita emissions to stop being poor. Here are some countries that are generally considered to be reasonably wealthy, and their per capita emissions as a percent of US per capita emissions:
They are just as much looking to leapfrog and have opportunities to do so. Without massive numbers of oil and coal lobbyists, as just one example, it is far easier for them to jump straight into massive renewable energy sources and skip a lot of Western CO2 mistakes in their "bootstrapping" processes.