202103900challenge for practically implementation of CO 2 R remains on improving the activity and selectivity toward the desired products. Great efforts have been devoted to the design of active and selective catalysts, resulting a range of effective strategies for catalyst development, including controlling the morphology, [4,5] chemical state, [6][7][8] phase and surface facet, [9][10][11] and coordination structure. [12][13][14][15] In addition to the catalyst development, the design and optimization of reactors for CO 2 R give another route to enhance the catalytic efficiency. [16][17][18][19][20][21] Nevertheless, the industrialization of the CO 2 R is still inhibited by its unsatisfactory activity, selectivity, and durability, particularly for multi-carbon (C 2+ ) products.One major difficulty for controlling electrochemical CO 2 R is that, its reaction pathways and reactivity are highly sensitive to the catalyst-active-site identity and the local reaction environment. [22] Even minor changes of the catalyst-electrolyte interface occurred during the electrocatalysis can substantially influence the overall catalytic performance. [4,6,23] Besides, many of these changes and factors are intertwined, further complicate the effectiveness of catalyst discovery and reactor design. For instance, dynamic morphological changes have been observed on Cu-based catalysts, [24] the resulted roughened or smoothened surfaces are expected to cause changes in surface facets, [25] chemical states, geometric current densities, [26] and further the local pH values. [27,28] When significant pH changes occur, the ions and CO 2 concentrations within the boundary layer are altered, [29,30] which could further lead to severe CO 2 consumption and overestimation of productivity and selectivity for a given system. [31] Hence, it is crucial to uncover the interplays between these dynamic changes at the catalyst-electrolyte interface and the catalytic performance.In the past years, some research has paid attention to the dynamic changes at the catalyst-electrolyte interface and other components in CO 2 R systems, [4,23,32] thus, motivating us to take a systematical review to summarize and understand this phenomenon in CO 2 reduction. The obtained insights can provide valuable guidance for future development of active and selective catalysts and reactors. We aim to highlight both the origin of these dynamic changes and the consequences they could bring to the CO 2 R. As shown in Figure 1, we focus on analyzing Electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) is substantially researched due to its potential for storing intermittent renewable electricity and simultaneously helping mitigating the pressing CO 2 emission concerns. The major challenge of electrochemical CO 2 reduction lies on having good controls of this reaction due to its complicated reaction networks and its unusual sensitivity to the dynamic changes of the catalyst structure (chemical states, compositions, facets and morphology, etc.), and to the non-catalyst components at...