The system of inserting a leap second into global time scales will be maintained until 2023.
 
The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute said Friday that participants of the World Radiocommunication Conference held in Geneva on Thursday failed to reach an agreement on whether or not to abolish the one-second adjustment.
 
The institute said the participants only agreed to re-discuss the matter in 2023.
 
A leap second is added to correct for minor discrepancies between Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is defined by the Earth's rotation, and International Atomic Time, determined by atomic clocks in laboratories around the globe.
 
Calls to abolish the system emerged, mainly in the U.S., from the middle of the 2000s after costs grew for adjusting computers and satellites.
 
Currently, South Korea, Japan, the U.S. and many European countries want the leap second system to be scrapped while Britain, Russia and some Middle Eastern countries want it to be maintained.