There's just one problem. He's wrong. The house had been abandoned after the 2009 earthquake and tsunami. In case anyone wasn't aware of this, climate change doesn't cause earthquakes.

The Daily Sceptic's environment editor, Chris Morrison, has details:

Last year the UN Secretary-General António Guterres visited the Pacific island of Samoa and was filmed by a deserted house that he claimed had been abandoned due to climate change-related sea level rises and increasing storms. It was a porkie that quickly put its hat on and travelled around the world. The  journalist Ola Sandstig reporting on Swedish public radio recently tracked down the owner of the house and found the dwelling was abandoned due to the 2009 earthquake and tsunami. Sadly, Samoa is still experiencing sea level rises about six times higher than previous levels but scientists explain it is due to the after effects of the earthquake. There has been no increase in tropical storms in the area and earthquakes and tsunamis are not caused by humans.

Note the end of that last sentence, which is belaboring the obvious but had to be said: Earthquakes and tsunamis are not caused by humans. It's not clear whether the Secretary-General is lying, mistaken, or uninformed, but he's wrong all the same:

Guterres stood by the house and stated that “if we are not able to stop what is happening with climate change, the problem that we see in Samoa will not stay in Samoa”. The arrogance on display here is astonishing. Most Pacific islands have been inconveniently increasing in size of late due to natural forces such as sand and coral accretion along with land movement. The unfortunate case of Samoa was obviously chosen for maximum psychotic effect. This despite clear evidence that has been presented by the distinguished geophysicist Professor Shan-Chan Han that showed land subsidence in the wake of the 2009 earthquake was causing sea levels to rise up to six times faster. Sadly, this effect is “likely to continue for decades” leading to “regular nuisance flooding”.

Here's the thing, and it's as Mr. Morrison points out: Everything changes- every landscape, every local climate, the global climate, sea levels, everything. Always have; always will. Samoa and, indeed, much of the area suffered horribly from the 2009 quake and tsunami, and it's not only arrogant but deceitful to leverage that catastrophe to push the anthropogenic climate change argument.

To what end? Why is the UN continuing to push this line? It's hard to credit a group of people, many of whom are leaders of major nations, so seemingly determined to not only reduce our quality of life by limiting the one thing our modern lifestyles depend on - cheap, reliable energy. It's hard to credit these people ignoring eons of data showing that through most of the planet's history, it's been warmer than it is now. It's hard to credit why these people keep pushing this line unless you factor in that it's not about the climate; it's about control.

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And, it's a safe bet that the Secretary-General didn't travel to Samoa in a sailboat made of reeds.

Mr. Morrison concludes, in the story linked above:

Antonio ‘boiling’ Guterres’s constant hysterical pronouncements are risible. But he is still the head of the UN – the parent-organisation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – and Roger Pielke worries about the effect of all the false claims and bad science. “The climate science community should care that the UN has been systematically misrepresenting climate science, because it could affect how the IPCC is viewed, fairly or unfairly,” he noted. As reported by the Daily Sceptic in 2022, Pielke noted that he had seen “a concerted and successful” effort by climate advocates to create and spread disinformation about disasters, “knowing full well that virtually all journalists and scientists will stay silent and allow false information to spread unchecked – and sometimes will even help to amplify it”.

In other words, they are lying, and the legacy media is helping.

As I've written before, there is an apocryphal quote attributed to the Duke of Wellington, who reportedly opposed the growth of passenger railways, stating arrogantly that they would "...promote unrest by allowing the lower orders to travel too freely about." I've never been able to verify that Arthur Wellesley actually said that, but regardless of the facts of that, the statement represents an attitude all too common among self-appointed, and sometimes even elected, leaders: The idea that we need to be restricted, our choices limited, for "our own good." 

The climate scolds represent this attitude to a T, and they are willing to play fast and loose with the facts to push their agenda. The UN Secretary-General is just one of many such people.