Luanda: Connectivity is one of the keys to global development, and a crucial threshold for granting the South access to the Fifth Industrial Revolution. Many governmental, nongovernmental and even private enterprises are working together to improve global connectivity in ways that foster sustainable, green development in the places that need it most, and to do so in ways that are both mutually beneficial and still profitable.
The Fifth Industrial Revolution describes ongoing advances associated with the recognition that previous models of growth and development produced the Anthropocene––a period of geological time that correlates with the start of the First Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, and the tremendous impacts human industrial activity has had on climate change since then. In short, the Anthropocene corresponds with problems associated with extreme weather, as well as increasing food, water and energy insecurity, rising geological tensions, and the omnipresent specter of environmental tipping points and potential cascade effects.
The Fifth Industrial Revolution in contrast emphasizes green development, innovating green technology, increasing renewable energy production and usage, and fostering an ecological civilization that builds on cooperation and communal action over the zero-sum and often scorched-earth practices usually associated with industrial development. Furthermore, the Fifth Industrial Revolution calls for abandoning an overemphasis on “for-profits” and instead stresses “for benefits,” with the understanding that doing good is not only more sustainable, it also creates more opportunities for win-win solutions that can in fact improve returns on investments while also ensuring people actually survive to enjoy these returns.
Enter the Global South
Many areas of the South have been passed over by the previous four industrial revolutions. To be sure, they have long been impacted by industrial developments elsewhere, having been subjected historically to colonialism and expropriations, and still vulnerable to structural and systemic inequalities that persist for various reasons today.
Understandably, many of these areas include islands that are not only especially vulnerable to climate change, but have always presented geological challenges to the sorts of industrial development favored by nations with larger, contiguous land masses.
–The Daily Mail-Beijing
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