Mr. John Muldowney:

On the negotiation, we were neutral on wetlands, per se. The argument was LULUCF, how to look at flexibilities from LULUCF and what carbon credits new and additional activity was available from that. The areas of that which are best understood are around peatland that is under grass or crop management. That has the best historic data to be able to back up any land change that happens in terms of land-use of these areas. With other areas of wetland that is non-agricultural, we are talking about raised bogs that are purely biodiversity sites or cut-over raised bog. The knowledge of the drivers of trends and how the carbon cycle works in that is less well understood in terms of the interannual variation that can happen on it to be able to validate what has happened. There is ongoing work to try to improve that and options remain to include wetlands at some point, whether that is 2021 or midway through the next ten-year period, which is 2025, should the science be of a sufficient and robust standard for that area. While the UK has elected wetlands, it does not know how it will start to get sufficient evidence to back up its inventory in that area. That is how difficult it is.