POKOLBIN winemaker Alisdair Tulloch won't directly support teenagers campaigning against a major expansion of Glencore's Glendell coal mine at Singleton until 2044 because of climate change.
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He has friends who are Hunter coal miners, who feel "beaten up" by climate change protests.
But that doesn't mean he supports Hunter mine expansions. After years of directly experiencing the impact of record-breaking warmer average annual temperatures on vineyards where some vines were planted in the 1920s, Mr Tulloch knows better than most the costs and impacts of a warming planet on industry.
He offers a nuanced response to the teenagers' call in the hope that in 2020, after the past few weeks' catastrophic bushfires and a decade's toxic climate change "debate", Australians can talk about the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions and prepare the nation for what's ahead.
"I think the true cost of coal, that includes the pollution costs and the cost to the environment, should be assessed when these projects are considered, and it isn't at the moment," Mr Tulloch said.
"At some point that free pollution has to be paid for. The wine industry began paying for it 10-15 years ago."
Mine expansions that will continue to add carbon emissions to the atmosphere for decades and increase global warming should be assessed on the direct impacts and costs of those emissions on others, including other industries, Mr Tulloch said.
"My view is that anything that comes out of the ground in Australia, any resource that creates emissions, should be accountable for those emissions," he said.
"I completely understand why the kids are protesting. I completely understand why miners feel beaten up by protests, but we've now entered a decade where we need to take serious action on emissions reduction and these kids, they're actually acting on that."
His position sidesteps the stand-off between the NSW Government, the NSW Minerals Council, the Independent Planning Commission, Land and Environment Court and environmental groups over whether "downstream" emissions of exported Hunter coal burnt overseas should be a determining factor in a mine's refusal. Under the Paris Agreement countries where coal is burnt account for the emissions.
But Mr Tulloch said a warming planet makes no distinction about borders. The impacts and costs of climate change on the wine industry sounds an alarm for the broader agricultural industry if Australian doesn't rein in emissions, he said.
He is a fifth generation winemaker and grower working with father Keith at Pokolbin's Keith Tulloch Wine. The Tulloch family name in Hunter wines goes back to the 1800s.
On January 9 the Bureau of Meteorology said human-induced climate change caused Australian annual temperatures to increased by more than one degree since 1910, with most of the warming since 1950, and particularly in the past two decades.
Since the 1980s Australia's wineries have adapted to shorter winters, longer and hotter summers, shorter picking seasons and the ripening of grapes nearly a month earlier than four decades ago.
Hunter wineries have had to invest in extra production equipment, respond to heat affecting the acidity and sugars in grapes, concentrate picking times because of excessive heat days, routinely apply sun screen to vines and watch as harvests have declined because grape varieties planted decades earlier are no longer suited to the warmer conditions.
"Grapes are very, very sensitive to changes in weather and climate. That's why you always see winemakers make a big deal about the year and season," Mr Tulloch said.
The serious drought affecting the Hunter has exacerbated the warmer temperatures and left unirrigated vineyards with decimated yields this season.
An unirrigated vineyard that has provided grapes for Keith Tulloch Wine in the past has had a 90 per cent drop in yield since 2017. An irrigated vineyard area owned by Keith Tulloch Wine will produce only 50 per cent of a normal yield this year, Alisdair Tulloch said.
"Climate change, with more severe and frequent heatwaves, potentially stops the vines from photosynthesising. Vines over 40 degrees get heatstress. We spray them with sunscreen. Not many people did it 10 years ago but it's an imperative in the Hunter Valley now, and it's expensive. The yield declines through this very severe drought we're experiencing have been extreme."
"The shifting climate has shifted the suitability of the different grape varieties for the area where they were established.
"The outlook of even a 1.5 - 2 degree Celsius warming, although that might look reasonable on paper, is extreme. The effects on viticulture are really profound now and will be incredibly difficult with another degree or half a degree.
"I don't try and convince people they have to feel sorry for winemakers. I feel concerned that what we're seeing in viticulture is a precursor for the struggles we'll see for broader agriculture in the 2030s and 2040s."
Keith Tulloch Wine is carbon neutral after years of work. The wine accounts for any emissions it produces by paying for trees to offset the emissions and sequestering the carbon.
"We have priced the cost of emissions into our business," Alisdair Tulloch said.
He can understand people being confused about climate change because of the toxic nature of the political debate about it. But Australians needed to factor in the role of mining industry lobby groups on governments which "seems to be the reason for some of the misinformation that's out there on climate change", he said.
"While there is no financial imperative to reduce emissions, emissions won't be reduced. We need to see the true cost of coal emissions reflected when decisions are made about it."
