Enhancing Carbon Savings Transparency in Indian Forest Conservation Through Blockchain Simulation

Climate change mitigation depends on accurate measurement, reporting, and verification of carbon savings through conservation, especially in large carbon-sequestering forest systems. Existing monitoring systems, however, have been shown to be plagued with transparency, traceability, and accountability problems in their data, which have a tendency to undermine their potential as allies of climate policy and carbon markets. The article describes the design and simulation of a blockchain model for tracking carbon savings through conservation blocks in India's largest forest regions in the Western Ghats, Sundarbans, Himalayan Foothills, and Eastern Ghats. The system was simulated in MATLAB in which 20 conservation blocks were given random values of carbon savings and chain-linked sequentially in a pseudo-hashes-inspired blockchain mode. The blockchain ensured the security such that each block securely pointed to the previous block's hash and thus formed a tamper-evident record. Simulation also compared regional and aggregate carbon savings, graphed cumulative trends over time, and ranked the top-performing regions. Results were presented as a total simulated carbon saving of 982 tons, with the highest being presented by the Himalayan Foothills (372 tons). The research confirms the ability of blockchain technology to increase the openness and resilience of environmental data systems and make them suitable to serve as a digital tool to enable reporting conservation and carbon accounting. The model proposed is an appropriate template for future research and application in tracking sustainability and climate control.