RIYADH: The UAE’s sustainability drive is expected to get a boost as the country is planning to double the number of electric vehicle charging stations in 2023, a top government official said. Speaking at an event held by the National Dialogue on Climate Ambition on decarbonizing ground mobility in Abu Dhabi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment Mariam Al-Mheiri said that doubling the UAE’s charging stations is part of the country’s EV policy. According to Al-Mheiri, if left unchecked, the transport sector could account for 30 percent of total emissions in the future, and the UAE is taking all possible initiatives to prevent such a scenario. In 2021, the UAE announced its Net Zero by 2050 initiative, a strategic national drive to achieve zero emissions through an investment of $163 billion by developing a healthy EV infrastructure. In May, Suhail bin Mohammed Al-Mazrouei, UAE’s energy and infrastructure minister, said that EVs are set to be at the core of the green mobility transformation as reaching net-zero emissions has become a collective and urgent priority. “To fully realize the potential of electric mobility, we are deploying a nationwide network of public and private charging stations, equipped with the latest innovative technologies to reduce charging time,” he said at that time. In July, state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. began constructing the Middle East’s first high-speed hydrogen refueling station in Masdar City. According to a press statement, this refueling station will use an electrolyzer powered by clean grid electricity to generate pure hydrogen from water. “Hydrogen will be a critical fuel for the energy transition, helping to decarbonize economies at scale, and it is a natural extension of our core business,” said Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber in the statement. He added then: “Through this pilot program, we will gather important data on how hydrogen transportation technology performs as we continue to develop the UAE’s hydrogen infrastructure.”