Tadhg O’ Mahony brings another PhD to The Futures Academy

A member of The Futures Academy has successfully brought through another PhD, the second to the Academy this year. Tadhg O’ Mahony has been a member of the Futures Academy for over five years and has been involved in numerous Academy projects. Tadhg’s research was on ‘Energy Carbon Emission Scenarios for Ireland’. This novel study used decomposition analysis to look at the historical change in carbon emissions from 1990 to 2007 at both the macro level and in the sectors, the first such study for Ireland. This was combined with exploratory scenarios to establish the plausible range of emissions to 2020 for Ireland, also the first such study of its kind. The traditional approach uses a quantitative point forecast to predict outcomes in the short to medium term but evidence has shown that uncertainty is high even on this timescale and scenarios are a tool to address this. Using scenarios allowed the research to engage with a range of important policy and development issues such as change in emissions from the private car and causation. We would like to congratulate Tadhg on his success.