The role of the digital economy in promoting energy justice: Evidence from procedural justice and restorative justice

The deep integration of the digital economy and the energy industry is the core grip at this stage to promote the quality, efficiency and orderly withdrawal of fossil energy, so that low-carbon benefits more cities and people. This paper ascertains the procedural justice and restorative justice in the context of energy transition by meticulously dissecting the variances within sample cohorts and probing into the manner in which the digital economy steers the cross-production-stage and cross-regional allocation of factors, thereby exerting an impact on the energy justice transition. The research finds that the development of the digital economy significantly promotes energy justice transition. Digital economy drives the cross-border allocation of factors, fostering environment-biased technological progress, especially energy-saving biased technological progress, in energy-lagging cities, which reduces clean energy development and operation costs, thus facilitating energy justice transition. Elevated degrees of environmental concern and enhanced energy cleanliness will augment the salutary impacts of the digital economy upon the energy justice transition. Concurrently, disparities in economic burdens will precipitate heterogeneous reactions among cities throughout the procedural justice transition. Further analysis reveals that accelerating the low-carbon energy transition in energy-lagging cities through the digital economy negatively affect urban unemployment and wage levels, with the transitions in low-carbon energy structure having a more pronounced impact. Nevertheless, the procedural justice within the energy transition has substantially diminished the disparity between resource-based cities and other municipalities with respect to economic development, industrial structure, and environmental quality. This study validates the enabling role of the digital economy for energy justice transition, and provides important insights for promoting the deep integration of the digital economy with real industries as well as regional synergistic development.