Last week’s request for public comment from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP) doesn’t look like a major win for a tech giant to the naked eye. But for Google and Microsoft, the announcement constitutes a considerable win in their years-long battle against their competitors over how to account for the carbon emissions of data centers and, by extension, AI. Out of ScopeScope 2 is a subcategory used by the GHGP to account for a company’s indirect emissions from purchased electricity, steam, heat, or cooling. For tech giants, Scope 2 emissions have surged as AI has driven massive growth in data center energy use. As these loads have grown, so too has the pressure to find a new way to account for them.