A Frozen 2005 to 2025 EU ETS Data Product with Rule Based Validation and Cryptographic Integrity Commitments
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65069/jessd21202624Keywords:
Reproducible data product, EU ETS, Data integrity, Blockchain anchoring, Merkle verificationAbstract
Compliance data from the European Union Emissions Trading System support enforcement, policy evaluation, and a growing body of research. The process of transforming registry records into published analytical series is not necessarily auditable. Scope harmonisation, historical corrections, and rolling releases make data reuse dependent on confidence in the processing pipeline. This study develops and evaluates a reproducible integrity workflow for a frozen country-by-activity-by-year-by-variable panel of verified emissions and allowance records covering two decades. The workflow combines canonical record identifiers, rule-based pre-acceptance screening, salted payload commitments, deterministic duplicate and replay protection, and Merkle root anchoring. It is assessed through tampering, duplication, and structural violation tests, a structured threat register, and repeated benchmarking on a local EVM chain. The results show that post-anchoring modifications, duplicate submissions, and malformed records are detected under the tested protocol. Merkle batching reduces on-chain commitment costs relative to individual anchoring while moving proof management off-chain. The study contributes a measured and reproducible integrity layer for EU ETS data. Cryptographic commitments make the anchored representation tamper-evident but do not establish the truth or completeness of the underlying emissions data. The system complements rather than replaces the Union Registry and the monitoring, reporting, and verification regime.
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