Energy-Efficient Blockchain-based Carbon Trading and Credit Framework for Korean ETS

초록

The global effort to combat climate change requires effective and transparent mechanisms for carbon trading and crediting. South Korea's Emissions Trading Scheme (K-ETS) has emerged as a key initiative, yet it faces challenges in transparency, energy efficiency, and scalability. This paper proposes an energy-efficient blockchain-based framework (eBCTC) tailored to the K-ETS, addressing critical issues such as double counting, transaction inefficiencies, and regulatory compliance. By leveraging proof of authority and association (PoA(2)) consensus mechanisms and smart contract intelligence, the framework ensures secure and low-energy carbon credit transactions. Performance evaluation indicates that the eBCTC achieves significant improvements in energy efficiency while maintaining environmental sustainability better than PoW and PoA across all K-ETS activities.