Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity, and our continued sustainable development requires a portfolio of solutions to ultimately reduce the use of fossil fuels and decrease the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Chemistry is central to tackling this issue, and of the pathways to transform carbon dioxide into value-added compounds, single-step electrically driven chemical methods have attracted substantial interest in the last decade. This review places emphasis on the barriers that chemists must overcome to realize this technology and enable commercial use of electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction. We outline design strategies for gas-diffusion electrodes and electrolyzers that follow fundamental principles of catalysis to bridge the gap between catalyst discovery and integrated system engineering. These should address both technical (thermodynamic and kinetic) and practical (infrastructural) hurdles to implementation. We conclude by discussing how these approaches can be improved to help achieve a carbon-neutral economy.

气候变化是人类面临的最大挑战之一，我们持续的可持续发展需要一系列解决方案，以最终减少化石燃料的使用并降低我们大气中二氧化碳的浓度。化学是解决这个问题的关键，在将二氧化碳转化为增值化合物的途径中，单步电动化学方法在过去十年中引起了人们的极大兴趣。这篇评论重点介绍了化学家必须克服的障碍，以实现该技术并实现电化学还原二氧化碳的商业用途。我们概述了气体扩散电极和电解器的设计策略，这些策略遵循催化的基本原理，以弥合催化剂发现与集成系统工程之间的差距。这些应同时解决技术（热力学和动力学）和实践（基础设施）实施方面的障碍。最后，我们讨论了如何改进这些方法以帮助实现碳中和经济。