The Verkhovna Rada will consider a bill on the abolition of the transition to summer time. If the deputies support it, Ukraine will no longer change the clocks twice a year – in fall and spring.
Two weeks ago, on March 4, 2021, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the bill “On the calculation of time in Ukraine”, which proposes to abolish the seasonal change of time every six months. If the law is adopted in its final version, Ukraine will live according to the current winter time – UTC+2 on the international scale. The difference between Moscow and Kiev will be one hour.
The author of the bill, a member of the “Servant of the People” party, Deputy Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk, believes that adapting to the time change twice a year is detrimental to people’s health. “Such a “seasonal time shift” leads to changes in biological rhythms and negatively affects a person’s overall condition, both physiologically and psychologically. After changing the clock hands, citizens experience a deterioration of well-being, a decrease in performance and a significant exacerbation of chronic diseases,” he wrote in an explanatory note to the bill.
Ruslan Stefanchuk believes that changing the time is not good for health. And a number of scientists agree with him. Stefanchuk also proposes to approve the concept of “Kyiv time”, which refers to the time of the time zone in which the capital of Ukraine – the city of Kyiv – is located, corresponding to the second time zone in the national scale of coordinated time of Ukraine UTC (UA) +2. Stefanchuk explains that this is aimed at protecting Ukraine’s territorial integrity: “On the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, the time of the aggressor state – the Russian Federation – is established. Therefore, the establishment and consolidation of a unified Kiev time on the entire territory of Ukraine without exception will help strengthen Ukraine’s security positions and contribute to the de-occupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories”.
Russia introduced Moscow time in the annexed Crimea, as well as in the unrecognized republics in eastern Ukraine. In the summer of 1981, Ukraine, along with the rest of the Soviet republics, began putting the clocks forward one hour. In 2011 (following Russia) the transition to winter time was cancelled, but the population of the country did not like it (following Russia!) and the decision was revoked. In 2011, Russia will switch to permanent daylight saving time. The president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, also explained this decision by the negative impact on people’s health. However, in 2014, due to numerous complaints, Russia decided to change the clocks to standard time.
Currently, about a hundred countries around the world change their clocks. The practice began in the early 20th century. It was believed that it would help save a significant amount of electricity, since human activity largely coincides with daylight and there is no need to turn on artificial lighting unnecessarily. However, if these considerations were significant a hundred years ago, today, according to the Czech scientists who have summarized numerous studies on this issue, clock translation allows saving only 0.34% of electricity.
At the time of the study’s publication, 77 countries and regions with a total population of approximately 1.5 billion people practiced DST. Today, however, more and more countries are abandoning it. In 2019, the European Parliament abolished the mandatory switching of clocks between summer and winter time in EU countries. From 2021, each member of the European Union will be able to choose whether to keep the current clock-switching system or abandon it altogether. Previously, an EU directive required all 28 member countries to switch to summer time on the last Sunday in March and to winter time on the last Sunday in October. This was preceded by a public debate on the idea of abolishing Daylight Saving Time in which more than 4.6 million EU citizens took part. The absolute majority of respondents were in favor of abolishing daylight saving time. EU countries that decide to keep Daylight Saving Time permanently will have to change their clocks for the last time on the last Sunday in March 2021.
There are numerous studies that have examined the relationship between various diseases and time zone changes. In 2020, an international group of researchers investigated how the introduction of daylight saving time affects the incidence of several diseases. The researchers analyzed the health of more than 150 million people living in the United States and Sweden. It turns out that there are four major groups of health problems that are truly dependent on time zone changes. These are cardiovascular diseases, various injuries, mental disorders, and diseases related to the immune system.
According to researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, the transition to daylight saving time increases the risk of heart attack by 5% in the first week, with the highest increase in the number of heart attacks occurring in the first three days. Switching to winter time, on the other hand, reduces the risk, but to a lesser extent. As part of the study, researchers examined heart attack statistics in Sweden since 1987, when the country introduced daylight saving time. Scientists in the U.S. and Canada have found a link between the changeover to daylight saving time and the number of traffic accidents, but this data is not supported by research by Finnish and Swedish scientists. A 2017 study published in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, it claimed that the switch to DST caused over 30 deaths and social costs of $275 million per year, mostly due to sleep deprivation. According to some data, the time change is correlated with a decrease in economic efficiency, and in the year 2000, the cost of switching to daylight saving time on US stock exchanges for one day amounted to 31 billion dollars. However, not everyone agrees with these conclusions: some argue that the results depend on the methodology used. Proponents of DST argue that the later onset of darkness at the end of the working day encourages people to consume goods and services more actively. The relationship between DST and crime has not been conclusively established, and even if it exists, it does not seem to play a significant role in crime statistics.