Fossil organic chemicals are the main resources for both energy demands and industrial organic chemistry. Burning or decomposing of these materials releases carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and carbon monoxide (CO), causing global environmental changes. This issue is the main concern related to the current earth situation. It could be a critical task that excess CO 2 be captured and converted into the original resources. In this overview, CO 2 origin and withdrawing mechanism and the thermodynamics, kinetics, and pathway of the CO 2 reduction reaction are summarized, and then the methods of CO 2 reduction are briefly compared with respect to commercialization capability. Electrochemistry is known as a green and cost-effective technique, which motivates many chemical reactions in technological areas. Conversion of CO 2 into the intrinsic chemicals assisted by electrochemistry is an imperative subject in terms of both energy demand and greenhouse gas control. However, some drawbacks such as less dissolution of CO 2 gas in aqueous electrolytes and low selectivity of products decrease the efficiency of CO 2 recycling by use of electrochemical procedures. Next, recent trends in development of electrocatalysts and various factors in electrochemical reduction are reviewed. After that, challenges in liquid-phase CO 2 reduction and insights into gasphase CO 2 reduction assisted by electrochemical gas diffusion electrode (GDE) are summarized. Taking into account technoeconomic analysis, the future of GDE in electrochemical CO 2 conversion and the development of new advanced procedures toward improving selectivity and stability with high faradaic efficiency are discussed. Finally, a brief discussion about Li/CO 2 batteries and H 2 /CO 2 fuel cells combined with CO 2 /H 2 O electrolysis cells as a future of CO 2 management and utilization are presented.