Daylight Saving Time (DST) kicks in on Sunday, 25 October 2020. As a result, clocks will go back an hour in various parts of the world, including Britain, and North and South Cyprus, but not in Turkey, which opted out of DST in 2016.
Clocks switch over to DST at 2am Sunday morning, allowing those of us in Britain and Cyprus an extra hour in bed.
In Turkey clocks remain the same, but the country will wake up to a three-hour time difference with the UK, and an hour’s difference with Cyprus.
DST helps the day start with more light, which is important as northerly territories such as Scotland would start their day without any daylight. Instead, dawn for them would arrive around 10am.
Even though DST means the dark evenings start earlier, around 4pm in the height of winter, research shows it is safer to have more light in the mornings, with fewer road accidents.
But the practice is confusing to some, as DST requires clocks to go forward in the spring, and fall back in the autumn.
The idea for DST was first introduced by a British builder called William Willet. In 1907, he published a pamphlet called “The Waste of Daylight”, arguing that it was important to adjust the time during the year to make better use of valuable daylight hours in the winter.
Germany was the first country to adopt his proposals. They were followed a few months later by the UK, which passed the Summer Time Act of 1916.
The practice quickly took hold and throughout the last century virtually all parts of the world bar Africa adopted DST. In recent years, DST’s popularity has started to wane though.
Many countries in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America have stopped DST entirely. The European Union is also considering ending the practice in 2021.
In March 2019, the European Parliament passed a proposal to end DST from 2021 onwards. It remains to be seen if Member States will implement this though.
