Put a fence around your plot, and perhaps the tainted soil of your neighbour will not enter; try to dissuade adversaries with a thousand men from crossing over the border; even dam the frothy river of phosphates to prevent contamination downstream. With our feet on solid ground, we can excuse problems, build walls, or forge gates. But that does not work above our heads.

There are no limits to the air, and no space more shared than the atmosphere. Therefore, climate change is the most global challenge and at the same time the most difficult to tackle because it involves adjustments in the present without visible short-term benefits. Environmental protection stands in contrast to ‘carpe diem,’ and the commitments that slowly open among Western societies are irrelevant in other parts of the world.

An all-encompassing, globally integrated comprehensive plan has not yet been signed or implemented without delay. Along the way, preachers oblivious to the symptoms of global warming are gaining prominence. Extremists, amalgamated in the apostolate of denialism, are given voice and focus. They are enemies of consensus and evidence, individuals entrenched behind religious or political dogmas, lone scientists, apostates from data, and multinational corporations evading the stick in their gears.

But the climate clock is ticking. Its hands move like the increasing heat of summer, counting down dates with the speed of an out-of-season downpour, without restraint. It is not a friendly clock; it is an extreme and tense timer. The alarm that signals the Earth’s limit, a silent siren for those who do not want to listen and obscure for those who resist seeing. Hope beneath the leaden city is the water, above it, the sky.

This work is part of the European Unity collection, which Gómez Cambronero presented in November 2023 in a major solo exhibition at the European Parliament in Brussels.