The "Cool Biz" casual dress code campaign launched by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on June 1 has spread to the bureaucracy, Diet and Supreme Court, but whether the intended effect -- of setting air conditioners at higher levels in cities to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and thus help curb global warming -- will even be measurable is no given.
"Everybody is getting familiar with 'Cool Biz.' You feel relaxed without neckties, don't you?" Koizumi asked reporters on June 30. "When the fall comes, I will put on a tie," he said.
"Cool Biz" has received a bigger response than the "Energy-Saving Look" campaign of 1979 did, when then Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira encouraged people to wear short-sleeved shirts and take ties off in the office to cut down on air-conditioning during the world's second oil crisis.