ePub v2 fails validation with ePubCheck in pandoc 3.1.12 - worked previously

[shoesforindustry]

Validating an ePub v2 with ePubCheck fails validation with the following errors in pandoc 3.1.12. The same validation on the same ePub worked in the previous version:

Validating using EPUB version 2.0.1 rules.
ERROR(RSC-005): ./book.epub/EPUB/content.opf(2,108): Error while parsing file: attribute "xml:lang" not allowed here; expected attribute "id" or "unique-identifier"

These two are repeated 6 more times:
ERROR(RSC-005): ./book.epub/EPUB/content.opf(27,36): Error while parsing file: element "meta" missing required attribute "content"

ERROR(RSC-005): ./book.epub/EPUB/content.opf(27,43): Error while parsing file: text not allowed here; expected the element end-tag

It seems maybe the accessibility and xml:lang stuff that was added in pandoc 3.1.12 version should not be included for epub2 as it won't validate?