Japan Govt Cautious on Daylight Saving Time during 2020 Olympics

July 31, 2018

Tokyo- The Japanese government is cautious about the idea of introducing daylight saving time during the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games as a measure to protect athletes and spectators from summer heat.

At a meeting on Friday, Yoshiro Mori, president of the organizing committee of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, asked Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to adopt DST during the Olympics.

"We must consider a fundamental measure to cope with summer heat waves," Mori told Abe, calling for a decision by the prime minister. In response, Abe said this could be a solution to the problem.

Toshiro Muto, director-general of the organizing committee, who joined the Abe-Mori meeting, said, "We want the government to fully study the introduction of DST as the Olympics will be a national project." Specifically, the committee proposed that the clock be advanced by one or two hours during the Olympic Games.

But Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, the top government spokesman, said at a press conference Monday that DST will "have major impacts on people's daily lives," sounding cautious about the committee's proposal.

A senior government official separately said, "The government has studied the advisability of introducing DST many times in the past (regardless of the Olympics), but has been saying that it's difficult to adopt the system."

DST has been introduced in such countries as the United States, Canada and New Zealand. The system was adopted also in Japan, in 1948, but was scrapped in 1952 because it was unpopular among the public.

Critics say that DST could cause sleep disorders, such as insomnia, while there are concerns that it may help increase overtime hours.

If DST is introduced only in Tokyo to minimize such possible adverse effects, Japan would have multiple time zones, a situation that could cause confusion, sources said.

The Tokyo Olympics are set to take place from late July and early August 2020 at the peak of summer in Japan.

According to detailed schedules of the Olympics, approved by the International Olympic Committee's executive board on July 18, the starting time has been set at 7 a.m. for marathon and golf, 8 a.m. for triathlon, and 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. for race walking events, to avoid exposure to the heat wave.

But the organizing committee sees the need for introducing DST after Tokyo and many other parts of Japan were stricken by record heat waves this summer.

In the city of Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture, just north of Tokyo, on July 23, air temperatures reached 41.1 degrees Celsius, the highest level marked ever in the country. On the same day, the mercury hit 40.8 degrees in Ome, Tokyo, topping 40 degrees for the first time in the Japanese capital.

At a meeting in the central Japan city of Fukui on Saturday, Mori reiterated the need for DST, saying, "It's the only way" to cope with the heat wave.

"The summer heat wave is extremely serious this year," Mori said, suggesting that many countries could call for the timing of the Tokyo Olympics to be changed out of concern that severe heat may hit Japan again next year and in 2020.

Among politicians, Akira Koike, an executive of the Japanese Communist Party, an opposition party, voiced opposition to DST at a press conference on Monday.

DST will "send Japan into turmoil as adjustments would be needed for the computer and many other systems," he said, calling for the Olympics to be moved back to a period from September to October 2020.

Meanwhile, Tetsuro Fukuyama, secretary-general of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, another opposition force, told a separate press conference the same day that DST is "worth considering" as a measure to reduce the burdens on athletes, spectators and Olympic staff workers. Jiji Press