From London to New York, an iron curtain is rapidly descending on research departments across Wall Street in the form of the sustainable investment movement, which posits that environmental, social, and governance, or ESG, factors are the key to market outperformance over the long term. Analysts that don’t get on board with the ESG program — especially when it comes to climate action and the need to decarbonize — run the risk of being canceled.

Like the lawyers in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Wall Street research analysts — whose fundamental sector and company analysis provides the underpinnings for security valuation and efficient primary and liquid secondary trading markets — stand in the way of the ESG mob now intent on creating a “sustainable global financial system.”